@ICE, apologies for having been absent here for some time.
Manila’s remark reflects what a lot of TCM doctors say about tea. If you go back in history, tea was despised by a number of scholars as weakening of health, in particular a person’s stamina. That was millenniums ago. When the product was still not too popular country wide, and when understanding of it was restricted to only certain people. And when its cultivation and production was still very much primitive.
Over consumption of tea of any kind does weaken certain functionality, in particular the kidney, for over working the vital organs, but so does almost every other beverages.
To answer your question shortly: some teas causes dampness more easily than others. Proper use of tea drives dampness. Improper use causes dampness. Here I have it a bit more in details, as a way to redeem myself for not responding more timely:
Dampness caused through tea consumption happens in the following circumstances:
When the tea is cold, or not warm enough. This was observed long ago by different people knowledgeable about tea and had administered tea as a medicine. They had all asked their patients to drink the liquid when it is still quite hot. Of course you don’t drink your tea while it is scorching, but comfortably hot.
When the tea itself is of cold TCM inclination and your are already weak in the fire energy, or worst yet in the yin energy. That is why I have always recommend people who do not do a lot of exercises and who stay in the office most of the time not to use regularly such teas. People whose water retention is disrupted and whose digestive system is still healthy should drink such tea; they include people who have to sweat a lot under the sun, who smoke, who drink or who eat a lot of firely food.
A lot of the readers are still confused with the feeling of a tea infusion effect that is ‘dry’ in terms of taste, or the effect of diuretic as teas that are not causing dampness. All teas, coffees, and beers etc etc cause you to pee, but most also cause you dampness. Dampness in the TCM sense is not simply excess water in your body. It is a toxin, or evil if you will, in TCM definition. While it is true that getting rid of dampness a person needs to pee or sweat it off, but the reverse is not true: peeing or sweating does not mean that you are less dampness evil ridden.
The best way to rid mild dampness toxin using tea is to prepare tea moderately strong, using gongfu infusion, drinking while hot in small dosages, but repeatedly. A few teas do it better than others:
Moderately aged bouquet style Phoenix oolongs (not the very green ones)
Moderately baked Wuyi oolongs (better of slightly matured)
Matured traditional Wuyi oolongs
Matured shengcha puer (well blanched)
Classic Phoenix oolongs
This list is in order of effectiveness and defined empirically. Hope it help.
