Benefits to Drinking Hot Tea in Summer

The Summer heat can be invigorating and nourishing but also intense and exhausting. In addition to sun protection and shade, most people reach for a cold drink to quench their thirst and beat the Summer heat and it would make sense that drinking something cold would help cool you down, right? Not entirely. Research suggests that drinking hot tea in the Summer actually has a greater cooling effect on our bodies than cold teas.

Health Benefits of Hot Tea in Summer

A 2012 study published in the Acta Physiologica journal set out to test whether body heat storage during physical activity would be lowered when exercise was accompanied with a warm drink, water, relative to a cold drink. Ultimately, the researchers found that the participants who drank the highest temperature water while exercising had the lower body temperature and cooled down the most overall: “the ingestion of 50 ⁰C water appears to in fact yield a lower body heat storage compared to the ingestion of colder water.” Although it may seem to go against common sense – how can drinking something warm cool you down – it actually makes more sense the further you look into it. The researchers reason that drinking something warm stimulates the body’s thermo-sensors – a temperature sensitive RNA molecule located in the esophagus/stomach – which causes more sweat output. The researchers attributed difference in body temperatures between participants that had different temperature water to “disproportionate modulations in sweat output and thus the potential for evaporative cooling.” In layman’s terms: under the right conditions in which sweat can fully evaporate, the body cools down much quicker because of the increase in sweat output that results from a warm drink as opposed to a cold drink.

International Hot Tea in Warm Weather Traditions

For many cultures around the world, this is hardly a new development. In many Asian countries and some in the Middle East, drinking a hot tea throughout the Summer months is quite common. Unsurprisingly, the countries where drinking hot drinks in Summer are ubiquitous like India, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have some of the most arid climates in the world. In arid climates there is a large excess of evaporation over precipitation, making these places very hot and dry. In other words, the ideal conditions for a hot tea to cool you down. As the research alluded to, a hot drink will only reduce body temperature in certain cases where sweat can be fully evaporated, and these countries experience very dry heat as opposed to the type of humidity you’d expect in a tropical region so they’re able to enjoy the benefits more fully. So, while there are great benefits to drinking a hot tea in the Summer, not all places can reap them. Even if you do reside in a typically arid climate, you probably won’t get much benefit out of a hot tea on humid days, days when you’re wearing a lot of clothing, or if you’re sweating so much it’s dripping off and not evaporating from your skin’s surface.

Try This Tea Trend Today!

It may seem counterintuitive to drink a hot tea on an already hot Summer day, but if the climate is right, that hot tea can actually cool you down much better than a cold or iced drink. In a way, drinking a hot tea in the Summer will also help you maintain the right body temperature. There are a variety of teas that make for great hot drinks, and you can find a large selection of them in Revolution Tea’s premium tea shop. From black tea to herbal tea and organic tea to caffeine-free tea, we have it all! Shop our selection today and find the perfect blend to help you cool off this Summer!