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The cool or warm nature of tea

Cool or warm nature of tea

There are many reasons for choosing when to drink which tea. In this post, we introduce the concept of the cool or warm nature of tea. Far from seeing it as an absolute rule, we suggest it is an interesting criteria to consider. Depending on how your body feels and on the outside temperature, it can make your tea experience even more enjoyable.

A Traditional Chinese Medicine classification

Categorizing foods according to their cold, neutral or hot nature is a principle of traditional Chinese medicine. Depending on their cooling or warming effect, foods will be described as cool natured (凉性) or warm natured (温性). This will have an influence on whether it is beneficial to eat a certain type of food at a specific moment of the year or the day. Typically it is not advised to eat too much cold natured food in winter.

A result of age and production techniques

Because there are so many ways to process tea, it cannot simply be placed into one category. On the contrary, tea, with all its different types, spans the whole spectrum from cool to hot. The higher degree of oxydation or fermentation, the warmer it will be. For teas that are suitable for ageing, their warm nature will gradually increase over time.

Tea types according to their cool or warm nature

If you are wondering whether the tea you are about to drink has a cold nature or a warm nature, the following list will be useful. We have listed the cold or warm nature of tea types available in our online shop.

Cool natured:

  • young raw Pu’er Tea
  • Green Tea

Neutral:

  • Yellow Tea
  • aged raw Pu’er Tea
  • young Anhua Dark Tea

Warm natured:

  • Red Tea
  • aged Anhua Dark Tea
  • ripe Pu’er Tea

Our Seasonal Tea Tasting Collection was created with this concept in mind. The teas it contains change with the passing of the seasons.

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1 thought on “The cool or warm nature of tea

  1. Great artice. But wow, what a beautiful bowl. I tend to stick to Red Tea, but would love to try more of the ones featured on this website.

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