Remember: You should avoid drinking these eight types of tea!

1. The First Infusion

Modern tea is inevitably contaminated by pesticides, fertilizers, dust, and other substances during cultivation, processing, and packaging. The first infusion is actually for washing the tea and should be discarded quickly before adding fresh boiling water. This ensures the brewed tea is the most hygienic.

2. Spoiled Tea

Moldy and spoiled tea contains various mycotoxins such as patulin, cyclochlorotine, and xanthocidin. When these toxins enter the human body, they can cause symptoms like diarrhea, abdominal pain, dizziness, and limb weakness. Long-term consumption can lead to degeneration and necrosis of organs like the liver and kidneys, and it can even cause cancer!

Osmanthus and Winter Melon Tea

3. Tea for Sobering Up

Tea has a stimulating effect on the central nervous system. Drinking strong tea after being intoxicated can加重 the burden on the heart, with more severe consequences for patients with heart disease. Tea also promotes urination, causing toxic aldehydes from alcohol to be excreted by the kidneys before they are fully metabolized. People who often drink strong tea after alcohol consumption are prone to kidney problems.

4. Long-Steeped and Overnight Tea

Tea that has been steeped for too long not only has a dark color, poor taste, and weak aroma, losing its value for enjoyment, but also its nutritional value is greatly diminished as vitamins, amino acids, and other compounds are oxidized and reduced. At the same time, because the tea has been left out for too long, the microbial count (bacteria and fungi) in the tea is high, making it unhygienic and likely to irritate the gastrointestinal tract, causing inflammation.

5. Cold Tea

Tea is best enjoyed warm. Warm and hot tea can refresh the mind and sharpen the senses. Cold tea, however, has the side effects of causing internal cold retention and phlegm accumulation.

6. Scalding Hot Tea

Tea is typically brewed with high-temperature water, but it should not be consumed when it is too hot. Tea that is too scalding is highly irritating to the throat, esophagus, and stomach. According to foreign research, people who often drink tea hotter than 62°C are more likely to suffer damage to the stomach wall, leading to stomach ailments. The ideal drinking temperature for tea should be below 56°C.

Homemade Green Tea

7. Tea Absorbing Foreign Flavors

This refers to tea that has changed its flavor after being stored with other strongly scented items for a period of time. Some of these absorbed flavors can be toxic, such as those from paint or camphor.

8. Strong Tea

The tannic acid in tea can form non-absorbable precipitates with iron in food, and long-term consumption can lead to iron-deficiency anemia. Furthermore, strong tea contains large amounts of caffeine and theophylline, which are very stimulating. Drinking strong tea can lead to insomnia, headaches, tinnitus, dizziness, and is also bad for the stomach. Some people may experience nausea after drinking it.