Tea is one of the most popular beverages and is vital for your overall well-being. According to Ayurveda, a traditional medicinal system native to India, starting your day with a hot drink boosts your energy for the whole day. Making a fine blend of spices, herbs, and roots can make tea the most calming ritual to kick-start your day.
Some teas can have a cold nature even when they’re served hot. Sounds confusing, right? They’re not the ideal drink for chilly winters as they don’t keep you warm for long.
There are many cold and flu-protectant teas that are hot in nature and keep you from taking medicines in winter.
5 Natures of Food
Not all foods that taste hot are hot in nature, and vice versa. In Eastern medicine, the five natures of food are the inherent thermal properties that affect your well-being and functioning. They also decide the best season for it to be consumed.
For instance, you’d want food with a hot nature in winter and food that can keep you cool throughout the summer.
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), every food has a yin and yang effect on your body. This means that everything has two opposite energies, but they also complement each other. TCM tries to balance yin and yang with tea consumption, which can enhance your Qi, which is vital energy for your well-being.
Yin is the cold energy in the body, and yang is associated with warm products. Yin increases during the winter season, or whenever the weather is chilly, and to cancel it out, we need the appropriate amount of yang.
Teas with warming ingredients help cancel out the yin during such times to give you the best Qi (energy for well-being).
Stay Healthy With Naturally Warming Teas
Better blood circulation
Teas with ginger, cinnamon and cloves help regulate blood circulation. They widen the blood vessels and help increase the blood flow that can help keep the body warm and also reduce blood pressure.
Additionally, it helps the body to absorb all the vital nutrients and oxygen. So, having a warming tea does not only keep the body warm but healthy too.
Faster digestion
Teas containing ginger, fennel, and cloves improve digestion and gut health. They stimulate digestive enzymes, which reduces bloating.
Enhanced Immunity
Teas with warm herbs, turmeric, fennels can boost the immunity and help you protect against cold, flu, fever and other infections during cold weather.
These natural compounds have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that help in fighting against infections and strengthen the body.
Sore throat and respiratory functions
A strong ginger tea always does wonders for a sore throat. This can also be complemented with some herbs, cinnamon and turmeric. As consuming warm ingredient teas helps improve blood circulation, it can improve respiratory functions with better oxygen supply to the body.
Let’s find out the teas that have warming nature and their ingredients help you gain all the above benefits.
Naturally Warming Teas by Leaf
At Leaf, we offer a selection of naturally warming teas, including:
English breakfast – Loose-Leaf Tea
Our English breakfast tea is a fine blend of loose leaves from the world’s most renowned places for tea leaves: Assam, Darjeeling and Keemun. It has a heavy-malted taste with the right balance of strength and caramel smoothness.
Due to its malty taste, Assam tea is used as the base, blended with Ceylon tea from Sri Lanka.
It’s a black tea that’s quite easy to make. You just need to pour boiled water into a cup, place the tea bag in it for two minutes, and it’s ready to be enjoyed.
English breakfast tea has higher caffeine than a white or green tea but less than a cup of coffee. This gives the tea the right balance to boost your energy.
English breakfast tea is also believed to reduce cardiovascular issues and risks of stroke. It’s rich in flavonoids, an antioxidant that reduces stress and inflammation around the heart, which can increase blood circulation.
Other benefits include preventing kidney stones, the spread of cancer cells, and bone density loss.
It’s also beneficial for hair and skin health because of its composition, which contains adequate vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals.
Browse our variety of strong English breakfast tea that has even higher warming properties.
Ceylon Tea
Ceylon tea brings you all the warmth you need on a cold chilly morning or evening. It has a full taste of cinnamon with a rounded sweetness. We have the highest OP1 (delicate long wiry tea leaves) quality Ceylon tea from the mountains of Sri Lanka that makes it even more special.
To make Ceylon tea, bring the water to boil in a kettle and add about one spoon of the tea leaves to every 8 ounces of water. Let the flavours blend in water for 3-5 minutes. Strain the tea to separate the leaves and serve hot.
It’s rich in polyphenols that help balance the antioxidants and control free radical damage in the body. This helps in preventing chronic cellular ailments and fast ageing.
As it helps balance the antioxidants, the skin looks clearer and healthier.
Ceylon tea also helps regulate cholesterol levels and rescue blood pressure, which can help the organs, such as the heart and liver, function better.
The tea also contains caffeine and L-theanine, which helps boost productivity and energy throughout the day.
Butter Truffle
Who doesn’t like butter cookies in winter? Butter truffle tea gives the same taste and feeling. It’s made from malty black leaves blended with amaretti biscuits, cardamom, and almond flakes, making it a rich drink for winter. It has a sweet aroma and a nutty taste.
You can have a black or add a splash of milk to make it even more luxurious.
Brewing this tea is quite simple. Just add 1 teaspoon of tea to boiling water and let it rest for 5 minutes. Mix well and your tea is ready.
With the richness of nuts and butter, this tea is sure to uplift your mood and make you feel at home. It can be the most relaxing and comforting feeling on a chilly winter day.
If blended with black or green tea, it can be caffeine-rich and give you the right energy boost.
Butter truffle tea has got the right amount of fat and butteriness to help you improve digestion. The healthy fat in butter and nuts can also make the tea very nutritious. This also helps the body absorb the fat-soluble vitamins from the tea.
Do be aware that this tea contains nuts.
Oolong Tea
Oolong tea is one of the go to choices in warming teas. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), oolong is said to have warming properties. It is between green tea (unoxidised) and black tea (fully oxidised) which is perfect for warming your body. More oxidised the oolong tea is, the hotter it is for the body.
It contains a high amount of polyphenols, which act as great antioxidants. These can help protect the body from stress and inflammation.
To make an oolong tea, you can either take loose leaves or a tea bag. Dip it in a hot cup of water and wait for the magic to happen in 5 minutes.
It has a mild level of caffeine, so it is a good choice if you’re not looking for a highly caffeinated drink.
Oolong tea is also rich in vitamin C, B and minerals which help in proper functioning of the body.
Having oolong tea can help in better blood circulation which keeps the hands and feet warm during winters. This makes it a great choice among warming teas.
Chilli and Ginger
Changing weather always comes with the risk of catching a cold and flu. Need a tea that just hits strong in your gut and gives it a relieving feeling? Our chilli and ginger tea is one of the top picked teas when struggling with cold and flu during winters.
Add some root ginger and chillies to a cup of hot water. For a stronger taste, you can crush them more and let it sit in water for about 5 minutes. Strain the tea and this will be a very calming and indulgent experience.
A warm ginger root with a mild chilli taste is what you need for sore throat. Ginger has gingerol that helps reduce inflammation and pain. It also helps enhance the immune system which can make a cold and flu better in no time. It can help the body fight the bacterias and alleviates seasonal infections.
Chilli, on the other hand, has pain-relieving properties and can help open blocked noses in colds. It can also help the body fight against infections.
You can also try our ginger root tea for a stronger ginger taste. Other than protecting from the cold in winter, this warming tea can also help with motion sickness.
Masala chai
Masala translates to spices, and this Indian tea is all about that. It’s a warming black tea that can be had with either water or milk providing the much-needed heat to the body during winters.
Masala chai is a mixture of black tea with ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, fennel and cloves. The strong flavour of ginger is perfectly balanced by the sweetness of cardamom and cinnamon. These ingredients also help raise the body temperature which can keep you warm during chilly seasons.
The tea has got great herbal properties that help boost immunity. Ginger and cardamom add a high nutritional value to it making it rich in antioxidants and an anti-inflammatory drink.
Masala chai also helps soothe a sore throat and clear mucus when suffering from a cold, which is common during winter.
It also helps the body stay hydrated which becomes more important during dry seasons like winters. This also helps in skin looking less dull and dry during winters.
Lemongrass and ginger
Lemongrass and ginger is a warming herbal tea with a bright, lemony colour and a mixed aroma of ginger and lemon. Ginger adds a spice to the drink but together with lemongrass, it has a smooth texture.
Other than the anti-inflammatory properties of ginger, it also comes with lemongrass which promotes healthy digestion and can get rid of constipation.
Lemongrass comes with essential oils which can have calming effects on your body. It is also rich in vitamin A and C that helps in better health and immunity.
When both ginger and lemongrass are combined together, the drink becomes high in nutritional and anti-bacterial properties.
Keep It Warm With Leaf Tea Shop
Get your hands on our range of wintery drinks where you’d be spoilt for choices. These teas not only help you stay warmer but also healthier and more energetic.
We also offer many other types of teas based on their benefits and taste.
