Why You Should Drink Hot Tea in Hot Weather

Drinking hot tea when it's so hot outside seems like the complete opposite of what you should do, but it's not such a crazy idea.

This story by Joe Palca of NPR's Morning Edition explains why drinking hot tea on a hot day can help cool you down:

For my next installment, Morning Edition Executive Producer Madhulika Sikka asked me to explain why drinking hot tea cools you off on a hot day.

It does?

"Trust me," she said. "I'm Indian, I'm British. A billion Indians can't be wrong. They drink hot tea in hot weather." [...]

There are all sorts of receptors in all sorts of nerves, but the nerves in the tongue have a lot of one particular receptor that responds to heat. It's called the TRPV1 receptor, if anyone wants to know.

So when you eat or drink something hot, these receptors get that heat signal, and that tells the nerve to let the brain know what's going on.

When the brain gets the message "It's hot in here," it turns on the mechanism we have to cool ourselves off: sweating.

Link

 

Yes, anything hot will do. Think of all the middle eastern folks comfortably drinking tiny cups of scorching hot tea or coffee, and wondering at the antics of the sweaty westerners gulping litres of iced drinks.
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One simple reason why I never drink hot tea in hot weather. I don't like the stuff and I never drink it whether the weather is hot or not.
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My dad has said this to me since I was a kid (about 30 years ago). In all that time drinking tea, hot or cold, I can say nope-no discernable effect.
And the "Don't fan yourself in the heat, it actually makes you hotter"? Not true either.
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It's the same for hot (spicy) foods. And think about it, all the hottest foods come from the World's hottest places. India, Thailand, Mexico, etc. Thank you World's Hottest Places!
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