Which tea is suitable to drink with honey?

Home Dialogues Tea Reviews Which tea is suitable to drink with honey?

Viewing 15 reply threads
  • Author
    Posts
    • #8604
      JoyW
      Participant

      I used to have honey lemon before bed in order to sleep better. But my stomach is not feeling very well recently and lemon is a bit too strong for my stomach. I don’t like that taste of solely honey and thinking maybe honey with tea.

      Any recommendation on drink tea+lemon? Which one is considered better for health and sleep? How about the water temperature?
    • #9970
      Leo
      Participant

      Neither lemon nor tea before bed is good for a good sleep. It seems to me that your stomach is giving you warning to stop lemon before bed. Exciting the stomach with something so acidic when you try to rest is certainly not a good idea.

      There are many things that goes well with honey and calms you for a good sleep. Milk, almond milk (get the almond powder from Taiwan in Price Mart, the best quality in town and the best price), malt (try to find one that is not sweetened like Horlick, that sugar they use is not good), etc are safe and satisfying. Make it quite hot for adding honey.
      If you think that’s too much nutrition for you, try American ginseng. Be aware that it is quite cool in TCM so avoid it if you feel your stomach is week. In such case use jujube (red dates), nanzao (south date 南棗), or wolfberry (杞子). They are both comforting for a weak stomach and TCM neutral-warm. The shortcoming of these is that they need to be boiled for at least 30 min (shorter for wolfberry) or so for the contents to dissolve. One way to do it is to boil a large quantity in advance and store it in the fridge for a few days’ portion. 
      Eu An Sang, Dong Fang Hong, and Tong Ren Tang make various powdered red date/ginseng/ etc drinks for easy preparation. I trust only Eu An Sang for this type of things.
      One other thought about this drink is why honey at night? I think this is much more effective in terms of its health effect when drunk in the morning, with tea. Best with green tea, or sharper taste black tea. Black sugar (real raw sugar) is a lot more effective after dinner for calming a restless day and clarifying the heat toxins in the blood that you may have gathered 😉 
      Black sugar goes well with any of the above, plus a lot more.
      Happy that you asked. You should visit more often to share your thoughts and questions, like you used to have in the teabars. Let me know if I have not given you good enough solutions.
    • #9972
      JoyW
      Participant

      Very detail answer, thank you for detail explanations. I will try honey + tea during daytime in the weekends. Not enough time even just on working days 🙁

    • #9976
      sa11
      Participant

      I am quite fascinated by this list of tea alternatives especially American ginseng. What’s the taste and health benefits?

    • #9977
      sa11
      Participant

      Where do you think I can get this in Toronto?

    • #9981
      Leo
      Participant

      American ginseng is grown in North America. There is a huge farm in Wisconsin, and I heard somewhere in Canada too, though I know not any specific farm there. If you can’t get it elsewhere, most, if not all, Chinese herbal shops throughout N America carry it. There you would find all the other herbal I talked about; they are basic supplies really, though quality does vary from shop to shop.

    • #9982
      Leo
      Participant

      I forgot one important note: tea is not to be consumed together with any ginseng.

    • #9983
      Betty
      Participant

      I think perhaps all tea can be drank with honey. Only that the tastes of nicer teas would be covered by it. I don’t think I like honey before bed. Raw sugar with hot milk sounds very good. Maybe I’ll try that tonight.

    • #9988
      Betty
      Participant

      I have tried raw sugar with hot milk before bed for 2 nights now, and sleep has never been better! Heating up my milk now. Some old wisdom do work! Thank you for fine tuning that with raw sugar Leo.

    • #9992
      Al
      Participant

      Hi Leo, why is tea not to be drunk with ginseng? I ask just as there is a type of oolong that’s coated in ginseng+liquorice and seems quite popular in some tea shops…

    • #9993
      Leo
      Participant

      @Al, Thank you for asking. The potent substance in ginseng, ginsenosides, reacts with the gallic acids in tea in the intestine when the two are ingested together. They become various particles that are not absorbable. This way both the tea and the ginseng are wasted. It is not understood yet whether these particles are harmful or not.

      I have never liked or recommended those so-called ginseng oolong products. I actually have always told people to avoid them.
      @Betty, I love a hot cup of sweet milk before bed from time to time but I have always wanted to avoid white sugar. That led me to study the nature of real raw sugar and found that it is an entirely different thing from white sugar! It has become one of my favourite sweetener since.
    • #10015
      MEversbergII
      Participant

      Some milk, raw honey and strong, well ground Assam has become a go-to energy drink for me.

      M.

    • #10019
      zachno
      Participant

      Try Ceylon instead of Assam. A lot more perk.

    • #10022
      MEversbergII
      Participant

      I’ve been meaning to try some Ceylon black tea – where do you usually find yours?

      M.
    • #10023
      zachno
      Participant

      It’s a special favour a local Hong Kong style cafe sells to me from their own supply near the Chinatown here in Sydney. Fortnum and Mason in London carries some really fancy ones. Didn’t buy any there. Happy with what I got for what it does.

    • #10027
      tea soul
      Participant

      Strong Ceylon + milk + sugar = Hong Kong style milk tea!

      After pouring boiling water on broken tealeaves, heat the teapot a few minutes on low setting on electric stove a to make very strong tea. Mix with strong coffee one to one to make strong yuen yeung. Leo calls this Mandarin Duck!
Viewing 15 reply threads
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.