Great Heat Special: Why Yunnan People Drink Hot Tea Even in the Dog Days

Dashu, the "Great Heat," is the hottest of the twenty-four solar terms. In 2026, it falls on July 22, right in the middle of the dog days — arguably the most sweltering period of the year.

But in Yunnan, no matter how hot it gets, people in teahouses are always drinking hot tea.

Many visitors from other provinces can't understand it: thirty-seven, thirty-eight degrees outside, and instead of reaching for an iced drink, they're sipping piping hot tea? Isn't that just adding fuel to the fire?

Today, let's talk about why the Yunnan habit of "drinking hot tea in summer" actually makes perfect scientific sense.

The Science Behind Hot Tea Cooling You Down

Let's start with the conclusion: drinking hot tea does cool you down more effectively than cold drinks.

This isn't mysticism — it's physics.

When you drink a cup of hot tea, your body goes through a sequence of events:

First, the hot tea enters your stomach, and your body's temperature receptors detect a rise in heat. Your body kicks into cooling mode — pores open up, and you start sweating.

Second, sweat evaporates from the surface of your skin. Evaporation is an endothermic process: as water changes from liquid to gas, it absorbs a significant amount of heat.

Third, as sweat continues to evaporate, your skin temperature drops, and you actually feel cooler.

The key step is "evaporation." Hot tea promotes sweating, sweating promotes evaporation, and evaporation carries away heat — this is a complete cooling chain. Remove any link, and the cooling effect diminishes.

Why Cold Drinks Make You "Feel Hotter the More You Drink"

Now let's look at cold drinks.

Gulping down ice water feels great in the moment — the temperature in your mouth and esophagus drops sharply, giving you the illusion that you've "cooled down."

But immediately after, your body does the opposite: pores constrict, blood vessels constrict.

Why? Because your body senses the "cold" signal and instinctively reduces heat dissipation to protect your core temperature. With pores closed, sweat can't escape, and the heat inside your body has nowhere to go.

This is why many people feel even hotter and stuffier about ten minutes after drinking something ice-cold. Cold drinks give you "a brief sensation of coolness," while hot tea gives you "sustained actual cooling."

To use an analogy: cold drinks are like closing all the windows in a room and putting a block of ice inside — once the ice melts, the heat is still trapped. Hot tea is like throwing all the windows open and letting the breeze in — the initial blast of hot air is unpleasant, but once the air circulates, the whole room cools down.

Why Yunnan People Insist on Hot Tea

Yunnan sits on a plateau with intense UV radiation and large day-night temperature swings. Summer days are hot, but unlike the Yangtze River basin, it doesn't feel suffocatingly humid — the relatively low humidity means sweat evaporates efficiently.

Under these climate conditions, the cooling efficiency of drinking hot tea and sweating is especially high. Yunnan people have been drinking tea for generations — this habit isn't without reason.

And it's not just about drinking hot tea — Yunnan people are particular about "drinking the right tea." The most common types of tea during the dog days:

White tea: Cooling in nature, clears heat and reduces internal fire. White tea made from Jinggu large-leaf variety has a sweet, clean liquor that's most pleasant in summer. New white tea is cooler; aged white tea is gentler — choose based on your constitution.

Raw Puer: Refreshing and stimulating, with strong tea energy. The dog days make people drowsy, and a sip of raw Puer perks you right up. Just avoid brewing it too strong, especially on an empty stomach.

Sun-dried black tea: Black tea dried by sunlight rather than oven-drying. It has a softer, gentler taste without the drying quality of conventional black tea. Drinking sun-dried black tea in summer warms the stomach without generating excess heat.

A Few Tips for Drinking Tea During the Dog Days

Don't drink it scalding hot. 60–70°C is just right for sipping. Scalding tea is bad for your esophagus. Let freshly brewed tea cool slightly before drinking.

Small amounts, multiple times. Don't chug a whole pot at once. Sip slowly to give your body time to sweat and cool down. A pot of tea consumed over several rounds is more effective than downing it all in one go.

Avoid strong tea on an empty stomach. Your appetite is already lower during the dog days, and strong tea on an empty stomach can cause heart palpitations. Eat something first, or choose a lighter white tea.

Stock up on aged white tea. White tea from older vintages has a milder, gentler character. Boil a pot of aged white tea during the dog days, let it cool to a warm temperature, and sip — it cools you down without irritating your stomach. As the saying goes, "white tea is tea at one year, medicine at three, and treasure at seven." Age it a few years before drinking, and both the flavor and character improve.

Here at Songdehao, we still have aged Jinggu white tea from 2018, 2019, and 2021 — over 300 kilograms in total. If you'd like to stock up on aged white tea for daily drinking during the dog days, feel free to reach out via WeChat, and I'll recommend the right vintage for you.

On the hottest days of the year, don't just rely on air conditioning. Brew a pot of hot tea, work up a sweat — you might find it's actually more refreshing.

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