Five Proven Health-Preserving Tea Recipes for Winter

In the bitterly cold winter, when the world is covered in ice and snow and the weather is frigid, people prefer to consume warm and hot foods and drinks. For instance, beverages like black tea, which warms and nourishes yang qi and dispels cold while harmonizing the stomach, are enjoyed during work breaks, after meals, at banquets, or when gathering with friends. This brings a unique pleasure and is also beneficial for health.

1. Mian Cha (a kind of flour tea)

Efficacy: Strengthens the stomach and aids digestion, nourishes the blood and darkens the hair, moistens the intestines and helps with occasional constipation, promotes blood circulation, enhances cold resistance, making it a good health-preserving tea for winter.

Prescription: 500 grams of broomcorn millet flour, 150 grams of sesame paste, 50 grams of sesame oil, 25 grams of sesame seeds, 5 grams of Chinese prickly ash, 40 grams of refined salt, 5 grams of ginger powder, 7 grams of alkaline noodles. (Can make 50 bowls of flour tea)

Preparation method: Roast the sesame seeds over a gentle flame until they turn yellow; separately roast the refined salt and Sichuan peppercorns over a gentle flame until dry. Then, grind the toasted sesame seeds, 25 grams of refined salt, and Sichuan peppercorns together into a powder to make sesame pepper-salt. Heat the sesame oil until it is 80% cooked, then pour it into the sesame paste and mix well for later use.

Pour 2250 grams of cold water into a pot, add the alkaline noodles and the remaining refined salt, and heat over high flame until the water is about 80% boiling. Then, mix 750 grams of cold water with the proso millet flour evenly, pour it into the pot, and continuously stir to helps maintain sticking to the bottom. Once boiling, immediately reduce to low flame and simmer for about 15 minutes until the proso millet flour turns into a yellow, thick porridge. Scoop it into an aluminum bucket and keep warm over low flame. When serving, ladle the porridge into a bowl, drizzle it generously with sesame paste, and sprinkle with some sesame and pepper salt and ginger powder. This dish is fragrant and has a balanced saltiness, best served hot. Consume 1 to 2 bowls per serving.

Source: Preparation of Flavorful Snacks.

2. Dandan Oil Tea

Efficacy: This dish tastes salty, fresh, fragrant, and slightly spicy. It can invigorate the Spleen and stimulate the appetite, nourish and tonify the body, raise body temperature, and warm the middle-jiao to resist cold. It is suitable for those with Spleen-stomach deficiency and physical weakness. It is ideal for breakfast or late-night snacks and is especially good to eat in winter.

Prescription: 400 grams of rice, 100 grams of glutinous rice, 500 grams of standard wheat flour, 150 grams of vegetable oil, 150 grams of sesame seeds, 50 grams of pickled kohlrabi, 75 grams of refined salt, 5 grams of Sichuan peppercorns.

10 grams of red chili powder, 25 grams of ginger, 25 grams of chopped green onion, 3 grams of baking soda, 25 grams of dry starch, 15 eggs, 15 grams of sesame oil.

Preparation method: Put 3000 grams of clean water into a pot, bring it to a boil, then add 10 grams of ginger pieces and 1 raw green onion. Skim off the floating foam when the water boils, remove the green onion and ginger, then take the pot off the fire. After 10 minutes, stir the ground rice and glutinous rice flour into the water. Put the pot back on a high flame to boil, then move it to a low flame and simmer until it becomes a youcha (oil tea) paste for later use.

Take 500 grams of standard flour, add 5 grams of salt and 3 grams of baking soda, then pour in 200 grams of clean water. Mix well, knead thoroughly, and let it rest for 1 hour. After that, roll it into strips, brush with vegetable oil, and coil the strips to allow them to “sweat”. Heat vegetable oil in a pan until it is 70% hot. Pull the sweated dough into 50-gram portions, stretch it into thin strands as thin as hemp ropes, coil them, and deep-fry in the oil to make youcha sansa (oil tea fried dough twists).

After heating the rapeseed oil in a wok until hot, pour it separately into Sichuan peppercorns and chili powder to make pepper oil and chili oil. Toast sesame seeds and grind them into a fine powder, finely chop pickled mustard tuber, and mince 15 grams of ginger. When preparing to serve the oil tea, first crack an egg into a bowl and whisk it (one egg per bowl). Then, spoon the oil tea paste into the bowl and mix it evenly with the egg mixture. Add salt, sesame oil, pepper oil, chili oil, ground sesame seeds, minced ginger, chopped pickled mustard tuber, and chopped green onions. Place crushed deep-fried dough twists on top of the oil tea paste. Serve hot and consume 1 to 2 bowls.

Source: Production of Flavorful Snacks.

3. Hawthorn and Walnut Tea

Efficacy: Nourishes the Lung and strengthens the Heart, generates body fluids and helps with occasional cough, helps maintain the onset of cardiovascular wellness, supports cough due to Lung deficiency, indigestion from excessive meat consumption, constipation, and coronary Heart wellness.

Prescription: Crataegus Pinnatifida 30 grams, Walnut Kernel 100 grams, Black Tea 3 grams, White Sugar 30 grams.

Usage: Decoct in water to make a decoction and drink it as tea, and eat walnut kernels together.

Source: Folk single and empirical prescription.

4. Dried Shrimps Tea

Efficacy: Nourishing and appetizing, invigorating the spirit, it is a health-preserving tea for winter.

Prescription: 15 shelled shrimps, 3 grams of oolong tea.

Usage: Brew with boiling water and drink as tea.

Source: 500 Types of Homemade Beverages in China and Foreign Countries.

5. Fragrant Peach Tea

Efficacy: Warms the stomach and strengthens the Spleen, dispels cold, and improves appetite.

Prescription: Half a cup of strong black tea, 2 – 3 slices of peach slice, 30 grams of granulated sugar.

Usage: Add an appropriate amount of boiled water and drink it while hot.

Source: 500 Kinds of Homemade Beverages from Home and Abroad.