Tea and the Body

              In the past several months I have been exposed and involved in Chinese tea ceremony. Although grew up drinking tea, not until recent did I really start to feel the spirit of it.

              But as a new Tea Drinker I do not have enough credit to talk about the ceremony itself. Here what I really want to share is the health benefit that I have experienced and concluded according to the 5-element system, and how it connects and affects human body.

             

In general, regular Chinese tea is divided into 6 types.

1.    Green Tea: Fresh, not fermented

2.    White Tea: Very slightly fermented

3.    Yellow Tea: More fermented than white but still very slight

4.    U-Long: About half-fermented

5.    Red Tea: Fully fermented

6.    Black Tea: Fully fermented and aged

The chart below is self explanatory:

Element	Color	Tea	Season	Organ (Meridian)	Nature
Wood	Green	Green Tea	Spring	Liver/Gall Bladder	Cool
Fire	Red	Red Tea	Summer	Heart/Small Intestine	Warm
Earth	Yellow	Yellow Tea, U-Long	Last 18 days of every season/all year	Stomach/Spleen; Triple Energizer/Pericardium	Neutral
Metal	White	White Tea	Autumn	Lungs/Large Intestine	Cool
Water	Black	Black Tea	Winter	Bladder/Kidneys	Warm

              My point here is that if we know our health type or condition, we may be able to help ourselves by using the right type of tea as a beverage remedy. Sometimes TCM is like art, there are basic principles but no rigid rules. So when comes to how to choose the right tea we still need to be flexible or even creative.

              There are many aspects in tea drinking but here I only want to point out the basic principle, which is to balance the body using the nature of the tea. In general, people who were born and live long enough in northern area tend to have more cold inside the body system. So choose warm tea like red tea or black will help to balance the energy. Obviously, people from the south can drink more cooler tea like fresh green tea and white tea to reduce the excessive heat inside. But these days people travel and move often. In that case we need to learn and feel more about ourselves, so we can figure out what type of body energy we have, and then take advantage of the gift that the Mother Nature offers us. Many modern research has shown how benefit tea is scientifically, but that is only 50% of the picture, only if we choose the right tea for the body can us really benefit from it.

              For WNY local friends, I have started to run small tea ceremony session at my little classroom to experiences the healing effects of tea for our body. Due to the size limitation we can only hold small group of people. If you are interested feel free to call me or email about details.