It’s that time of the year again – neighborhood lawn parties, children’s laughter in wading pools, reading a good book on a hot languid afternoon…
But with the kaleidoscope of colorful summer blooms comes the inevitable pestilence of heat waves. During the summer, stress levels can get especially high with the overpowering sensation of heat that melts not only your ice cream but also your nerves.
Many people tend to cool down with iced beverages, but that only works temporarily as the body quickly regains heat. Contrary to conventional logic, many studies have found that drinking hot tea on a warm summer day actually cools the body down. That is because the hot tea increases the body’s temperature, causing blood vessels on the skin to dilate. This in turn increases the blood flow in the body, allowing the body to give off unwanted heat. As a result, the body is cooled from the inside out.
More importantly, tea helps to hydrate the body, especially during the summer time when the body’s water level is easily depleted. Tea is actually 99.5% composed of water, and about a third of the caffeine found in filter coffee. So it effectively quenches thirst without leaving a dry aftertaste.
Moreover, Pu-er tea can warm the stomach to keep it healthy from an oversupply of icy drinks. It can also help greatly with weight loss. This is because Pu-er tea contains relatively high amounts of gallic acid, which inhibits the absorption of fat and reduces the production of fatty enzymes by the pancreas.
Although scientific studies on tea’s benefits are relatively recent, the ancients were well aware of this knowledge and much more. It has long been recorded in historical annals that tea relieves annoyances, alleviates stagnation, purifies excessive alcohol consumption, banishes thirst and refreshes the spirit.
But tea is much more than just a drink. For people in ancient times, tea drinking was an art. Everything from the picking the tea to boiling it at the right temperature is carefully executed down to the minute details.
According to Lu Shu Sheng, a Ming Dynasty scholar, “Tea drinking is best suited to a veranda or a quiet room, in a monk’s hut or a Daoist hall, under moonlight silhouetted by bamboo thickets with wind blowing through pine trees.”
While such imagery is only found in literature in today’s society, one can still wrap oneself in a cocoon of tranquility by drinking tea. But this requires refining skills, patience and virtue. In brewing a good cup of tea, the ancients believed that one must first cultivate one’s heart. Only this way, can one enter into peaceful frame of mind to thoroughly appreciate the tea.
So today, put your regular cup of iced Joe aside and brew yourself a cup of Puzhen’s fine Pu’er tea. Here’s a toast to summer!
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