tea for colds

Black or green, with honey or raspberries, or maybe chamomile or lime? We found out from experts which tea will help get rid of the symptoms of viral diseases faster

When you come to the doctor with a cold, he, prescribing tablets and drops, will definitely add: “And do not forget to drink plenty of warm water”, first of all, referring, of course, to tea. Why, in general, is it recommended to drink teas with a cold? Therapist and gastroenterologist Alexandra Myznikova recalls: the more liquid a person consumes when he sits at home, stricken by a virus, the more it is filtered by the kidneys:

– The virus enters the urine and is excreted with it. On the one hand, this is a purely mechanical process, says the doctor. — But besides that, tea contains flavonoids. These are substances that are part of the tea leaf – powerful antioxidants. The inflammatory process implies a chemical process of oxidation. Just in order to prevent it and the further development of the inflammatory process, we need flavonoids.

What tea can you drink with a cold

The answer is which one do you like more: green, black, herbal. Saving flavonoids are found in any herbal tea – with herbs, leaves, berries. For example, there are a lot of these useful substances in the leaves of raspberry, currant, mint, sage, chamomile. By adding any of the ingredients to a cold drink, we will make it even healthier. However, when choosing which tea to drink to relieve cold symptoms, you need to consider the properties of plants.

“You need to choose herbs and supplements depending on the symptoms,” says Alexandra Myznikova. Chamomile, for example, has powerful antiseptic properties. Marshmallow and licorice have an expectorant effect. Ginger tea boosts immunity. Sage and eucalyptus contain essential oils that have a beneficial effect on the throat and nose. It fights well with mint and linden viruses. And, for example, rose hips and strawberries relieve heat.

Raspberry tea for colds

Raspberries are a healthy fruit. Pantry fiber, tannins, pectin. Raspberries also contain magnesium, selenium, iron, vitamins and a lot of ascorbic acid, which makes this wonderful berry something of a natural antibiotic.

Raspberry tea helps to stop inflammation in the body and lowers the temperature. Indeed, thanks to salicylic acid, which is in the berry, tea with it is an excellent diaphoretic.

By the way, children with a cold can also be given tea with raspberries without fear. True, if they are not allergic to the berry. A tasty and healthy drink can be safely introduced into the baby’s diet from the age of two. Start with a tablespoon, and gradually increase the dose as the child grows older.

For tea, you can use both jam and raspberry leaves and twigs. Add a tablespoon of jam to a glass of boiling water, let it brew for 10 minutes – and you’re done. Another option for cold tea is to insist 20 tablespoons of crushed leaves for 2 minutes. Only boiling water will need a liter.

This drink also has contraindications: for people who have an exacerbated stomach and duodenal ulcer, it is better to refuse tea with raspberries. Also, doctors do not recommend drinking it for gastritis and kidney diseases.

Lemon tea for colds

The “chip” of tea with lemon is ascorbic acid, which helps our immune system to resist sores. If you add lemon to green tea, then its effect is enhanced at times. And vitamin C, which in case of a cold needs shock doses, in turn “exacerbates” the antioxidants contained in tea leaves. Their beneficial effect on the body is increased by 7 times. So, if you choose tea with lemon for a cold, then its green “hypostasis” will be more useful than black. You need to brew such tea correctly: do not squeeze the juice into a cup, but use a slice of lemon with zest. After all, it has a lot of useful essential oils that kill germs. By the way, there is three times more vitamin C in the lemon peel than in the pulp.

But ascorbic acid is destroyed in very hot water. Therefore, if you want to keep its benefits to the maximum, do not immediately throw a lemon into boiling water, let the water cool slightly.

Tea with lemon also has some contraindications. In addition to “lemon allergy sufferers”, it is better to refuse this type of anti-cold drink for people with high stomach acidity. And for those who, in principle, experience problems with digestion, tea with lemon should not be drunk every day. Nursing mothers also need to be more careful with it: in a baby who eats mother’s milk, lemon can cause allergies and colic.

Tea with honey for colds

Honey tea is the best warming drink. You need to drink it often and in small sips. In addition, it is an excellent diaphoretic and diuretic, able to lower the temperature and “wash out” microbes.

Such tea enhances the protective properties of the body, relieves inflammation and relieves cold symptoms: chills, sore throat, headache. But it is especially good for dry cough. And thanks to the beneficial substances contained in honey, the drink helps a person recover as soon as possible.

But in order for the drink to bring the greatest effect, you need to remember that honey does not like boiling water. That is, you need to add it only to a drink that has cooled to room temperature. Otherwise, drinking from the healthy can become harmful: if honey is heated to more than 50 degrees, it completely loses its healing properties. But honey contains not only glucose and fructose, it contains almost all known vitamins, a huge amount of minerals, trace elements and enzymes.

The ideal option is to eat honey in a bite with warm tea.

ginger tea for colds

Ginger contains many useful substances. Potassium, magnesium, copper, iron, manganese and, of course, vitamin C, as well as vitamins A, B group, zinc and sodium, essential oils make tea with this root one of the best anti-cold drinks. It relieves coughs and clears the upper respiratory tract.

Ginger tea strengthens the immune system and speeds up the metabolism, helping to quickly cleanse the body of toxins. This is also helped by the “sweating” properties of the root.

Ginger today can be bought in any form – fresh, dried and ground into powder, pickled. But the most useful tea will be with pieces of a “live” root. For a better anti-cold effect, it is added unpeeled to tea, since ginger peel is also useful.

However, you need to be careful with this drink. No matter how badly a person with a cold would like to drink tea with ginger, at a very high temperature this should not be done in any case: a burning root can increase it even more. Other contraindications of ginger tea are, of course, allergic reactions, as well as diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, liver, excretory and cardiovascular systems.

Pregnant women, especially in the second trimester of pregnancy, should also be careful with ginger: it can cause bleeding.

Green tea for colds

Perhaps the main substances that make green tea useful for treating colds are catechins, which have strong antioxidant properties. According to the experiments of Japanese scientists, this organic adsorbs viruses, including influenza, and suppresses their ability to reproduce. (1) Catechins also boost immunity, and together with other antioxidants, they remove accumulated toxins and prevent the formation of new ones.

In China, green tea is called a longevity drink, and for good reason: it has much more useful than black tea – tannins, trace elements, minerals, amino acids and essential oils. The main vitamins of green tea are A, B1, B2, B3, C, E and P.

You need to drink a drink from young green tea leaves at the first manifestations of cold symptoms.

Green tea relieves coughs and fevers, due to its diaphoretic properties, it can reduce a slightly elevated temperature, relieve inflammation.

Herbal tea for colds

A healing drink for colds can also be prepared with herbs. Their set is huge, and each herb contains special essential oils, lipids, vitamins, enzymes, organic acids and plant hormones that can help cure a cold. In some cases, herbal teas even completely replace over-the-counter medications.

You need to choose the herb for tea based on its properties. For example, thyme and chamomile are a good expectorant and antibacterial agent. These herbs are useful to drink with bronchitis, tracheitis and laryngitis.

Linden fights inflammation and “breaks through the sweat”, lowers the temperature, and reduces sore throat. Brings down the temperature and tea with blackcurrant leaves. Sage relieves swelling from the mucous membranes, oregano soothes coughs and strengthens the immune system.

And, say, tea with echinacea helps with nasal congestion, with mint – destroys germs, relieves nasal congestion and relieves headaches.

An excellent tea for colds will turn out if you mix several herbs at once. The simplest mix is made from dried mint, thyme and lemon balm. Take a pinch of each herb, add to the teapot where green or black tea is brewed, leave for 10 minutes – and you’re done. You can add a teaspoon of honey to the drink.

Chamomile tea for colds

During the cold season, dried chamomile at home should be a must: in filter bags or in bulk – it doesn’t matter. After all, chamomile tea for a person who has caught the virus is practically salvation. And all because the bactericidal components and vitamin C contained in the drink help the sick person to sweat well, bring down the heat, treat cough, sore throat and runny nose. In addition, chamomile tea stimulates the production of mucus, strengthens the immune system and increases the body’s resistance to viruses. The bactericidal properties of chamomile are given by apigenin, a bioactive flavonoid that has an anti-inflammatory effect on the body. (2) Chamomile flowers contain more apigenin than any other plant. In addition to it, this healing “sun” contains the herbal antiseptic chamazulene, ascorbic acid, bisabolol, which has an antimicrobial effect, etc.

Chamomile tea contains a lot of potassium, iron, calcium, manganese, fluorine, magnesium, zinc and sodium.

The only contraindication is an allergy to the essential oils of the flower. And remember, chamomile comes in many varieties. Only the most unprepossessing of them can boast of healing properties – a meadow inhabitant with small and very fragrant flowers, and leaves that look like dill. It is called Matricaria chamomilla.

How to make tea for a cold

Everything is very simple here: take any brew as a basis, add medicinal herbs, honey or lemon, ginger or raspberries and that’s it – the cold drink is ready. And if you want, you can “spice up” the healing drink with several of the listed ingredients at once. It all depends on your taste and contraindications. If there are no prohibitions, you can safely experiment. And if you are afraid of unexpected tastes – choose classic combinations that will definitely not let you down – for example, ginger and lemon, thyme and rose hips.

When preparing a drink for a cold, remember that each type of tea has its own brewing temperature. For example, black tea, pu-erh and rooibos are poured with boiling water, water for green and white tea should be about 80 degrees, and for oolong tea – 90. Mate should be brewed with water at about 75-80 degrees.

You can also brew the herb without a tea base, but in this case, as associate professors of the Southwestern State University Svetlana Mikhailova and Elvira Pyanikova say in their scientific work, the drink will be less useful, since the substances contained in the tea leaf strengthen the immune system, which means they help the body of a cold person to recover as soon as possible. (3)

Herbs need to be filled with water at least 100 degrees – only then they will give up all their useful substances. And do not forget that herbal tea needs a little brew.

“If the recipe says “we take so many parts of the herb,” a tablespoon is taken as a part,” says therapist Alexandra Myznikova. – The packaging of the herb indicates how to brew it. Now herbs are available in filter bags, which makes life as easy as possible. If we are preparing rosehip tea, then we take 5 tablespoons of dried fruits per 1 liter of boiling water. Infuse this mixture in a thermos for 6-8 hours. And a warm infusion is consumed 1 cup several times a day.

cold tea recipe

Step 1

Boil water.

Step 2

Add freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice to a glass or ceramic teapot.

Step 3

Put in the same sliced ginger, mint leaves.

Step 4

Add dry medicinal herbs.

Step 5

Pour the mixture with hot water.

Step 6

Let the tea brew for about 5-10 minutes.

How to take tea for a cold

It is better to drink anti-cold tea on an empty stomach, and its temperature should not exceed 50 degrees.

“Drinking should be maximally adapted to body temperature,” advises Dr. Myznikova. – So the liquid will pass through all the filtration barriers in the body faster.

In addition, you should also not brew too strong tea. It is not recommended to drink it immediately after a meal. Eat, pause for 15 minutes and only then take on a drink.

You should also not drink yesterday’s tea.