A complete collection of traditional Chinese medicine health tea recipes

There is no "universal health-preserving tea" that is suitable for everyone. All formulas must match your constitution, current physical condition, and seasonal climate. If you follow the trend and drink it blindly, you may cause problems. I have been treating diseases in TCM outpatient clinics for 12 years. I have sorted out the most commonly used prescriptions that have been prescribed the most over the years, have the highest error tolerance, and can be prepared by ordinary people at home. I will first put the ones that people ask about the most at the top. I will also explain the pitfalls and different opinions in the industry to save you from making detours.

Let’s talk about the daily items that people in the office ask about the most. Last week, a young girl who works in e-commerce operations came to me and said that she felt nervous after drinking coffee every day, drank plain water tasteless, her mouth felt sticky after eating takeaways, and she always felt dizzy in the afternoon. I prescribed her this Qingrun Jianpi drink. After drinking it for two weeks, she came back for a follow-up visit and said that most of these problems have disappeared. The recipe is very simple: 3g of fried malt, 2g of Xinhui tangerine peel (more than 3 years old is enough), 2 freeze-dried snow pear slices, 1g of osmanthus. All the ingredients add up to only a few grams. It is neither cold nor hot, and can be drunk by people with mild temperament, qi deficiency, and a weak spleen and stomach. When you eat too much, your stomach is bloated, your mouth is greasy, and your breath is heavy, make a cup of it. It is much gentler than taking Xiaoshi tablets. If you are particularly prone to oral ulcers, replace the tangerine peel with one that is more than 10 years old, and the dryness will be much less.

In autumn recently, half of the patients in my outpatient clinic have problems with dry throat, itching, and coughing. In the past two weeks, prescriptions for soothing the throat have been prescribed the most. However, I would like to remind everyone that the usage of different schools in the industry is quite different: Teachers of the febrile disease school like to use cool heat-clearing medicine, which is particularly effective for sore throats caused by wind-heat type. It is suitable for people with red and swollen throats, coughing up yellow phlegm, red tongues, and people who are afraid of heat. The formula is 2g of honeysuckle, 2g of white chrysanthemum, 1 piece of sturgeon, and 3g of reed root. After soaking in a cup for half a day, most of the pain will disappear the next day. ； However, the seniors of the Typhoid Sect always advise that if you have an itchy throat, cough up white and thin phlegm, or cough more severely when exposed to cold, you must not touch the cold prescription above, otherwise the cold evil will be trapped in the body and the cough will not be cured in a month or two. In this case, use warm prescriptions: 3g of Zhigancao, 1g of dried ginger, 2g of platycodon, and 2 pitted red dates. Drinking it will relieve the symptoms in two or three days. When I prescribe it to patients, I always look at the tongue first. If the tongue is red and has yellow coating, use cool prescriptions. If the tongue is light and has white coating, use warm prescriptions. I rarely make mistakes over the years.

Girls often ask about prescriptions for regulating qi and blood. I never give a single prescription directly. After all, some people suffer from qi stagnation and blood stasis, while others suffer from deficiency of both qi and blood. The difference is far from that. If you are usually angry, your chest is swollen, you have blood clots, and you are sweating in pain, use this recipe for soothing the liver and activating blood circulation: 3 dried roses, 1 saffron, 2g fried hawthorn, 1 pitted red date. Drink it one week before menstruation. Don’t put too much saffron. One root is enough, but more will easily break the gas. ； If your menstrual flow is particularly heavy, your face is pale, you are short of breath after walking for two steps, and you feel tired at every turn, use the Qi and Blood supplement formula: 3g of astragalus, 1g of angelica (the ratio of the classic angelica blood-tonifying soup, 5:1 is the most suitable), 2 longan pills, and 5 wolfberry pills. You can drink it by soaking in it at ordinary times, but don’t touch it when you are pregnant or have a cold. Oh, by the way, pregnant women must not touch saffron no matter what the situation is. You must remember this.

Oh, by the way, there is also the most misunderstood dehumidification tea, which I must mention separately. There was an uncle who heard others say that dampness-removing tea can reduce the stomach. He bought ready-made dampness-removing tea bags online every day. After drinking it for three months, his stomach hurt every day. When he came to the doctor, his tongue coating was as white as frost. After asking, he found out that the tea bags were filled with cold things like raw barley, chrysanthemums, and honeysuckle. After drinking it, it seemed that the stool would not stick to the toilet. In fact, it hurt the spleen yang, and the moisture would accumulate more and more. The prescriptions for removing dampness that I prescribe to patients are all warm and will not damage the spleen: 3g of fried barley (must be fried, as raw ones are cold), 3g of poria, 2g of tangerine peel, and 1 piece of ginger. If you feel dry after drinking it, add 1g of Polygonatum odoratum to nourish yin and neutralize the dryness. After drinking it for a week, you will feel much lighter.

Middle-aged and elderly people often ask for prescriptions for regulating blood pressure and clearing blood lipids. I also have a commonly used recipe, which is suitable for people who are usually dizzy, have red faces, and have high blood pressure and blood lipids: 2g of fried cassia seeds (again, it must be fried, as drinking raw can cause diarrhea), 2g of feverfew, 2g of burdock root, and 3g of dried corn silk. Make a cup of it every day. It has a light taste and no strange smell. If your spleen and stomach are particularly weak and you have diarrhea when eating cold foods, add two slices of ginger to neutralize the cold nature. For elderly people with serious underlying diseases, it is best to ask their attending doctor before drinking, and do not make random adjustments by yourself.

As for whether health-preserving tea can be consumed for a long time, there are actually different views in the industry: Some veteran Chinese medicine practitioners believe that medicine is three-part poison, and even if it is made from the same source of medicine and food, drinking it must be stopped within two weeks at most.； Some colleagues who treat diseases before and after feel that as long as they completely match the physical constitution, for example, people with qi deficiency who drink a small amount of astragalus water all year round can gradually improve their physical constitution. My own experience is that ordinary people don’t need to be so serious. Just drink it for half a month and stop for two or three days, or adjust it according to your physical condition. If you have eaten too much recently, add two more pieces of fried malt. If you have a dry throat recently, add an extra piece of snow pear. It’s always right to be more flexible.

There are also a few tips that I have collected myself, which are all gained from practice: Don’t use 100-degree boiling water to make tea, especially for flowers and freeze-dried fruits. 80-degree water is just right, otherwise the active ingredients will be burned.； The total amount of all the ingredients soaked at one time should not exceed 15g. Don’t think that the more you put in, the better the effect will be. Health care is like watering flowers. Watering too much will cause root rot. Putting too much ingredients will increase the burden on the spleen and stomach, but it will be useless. ； If you find it troublesome to prepare the ingredients, just put it in a small tea bag according to the gram, take one bag at a time, put it in the bag to make it at work or when going out. It is much healthier than ordering milk tea for 20 or 30 yuan, and a cup only costs a few cents.

In fact, to put it bluntly, there are not so many mysterious rules for health-preserving tea. If you feel comfortable after drinking it, without stomachache, diarrhea, or panic, then it is suitable for you. If you feel nothing is wrong after drinking it for two or three days, stop immediately. Don’t insist on saying "you must stick to health-preserving tea". You will not do it. If you are not sure about your constitution, find a regular Chinese medicine doctor to check your pulse. It won’t cost much, but it is better than blindly trying drinks on your own and causing problems.