Top Teas for Hot Weather, Backed by Traditional Wisdom
You’ve picked up one of those little fans that connects to your phone. T-shirts? Sure—but maybe tank tops speak to with even more seduction. Flip-flops thwack as you walk from car to grocery store, your dogs just want to sprawl on the cool living room floor and popsicles call to kids and adults alike.
With months of summer heat stretched out before us—the season officially began on Friday—it’s time to figure out ways to swan through the swelter.
One easy hack? Teas that cool us down. The ingredients that people incorporate into tea cover an immense swath of botanicals—everything from Camellia sinensis to cinnamon to elderflower. Some of them get tapped to help bodies navigate days and nights when they turn torrid.
Tea traditions that tame the heat.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) touches on a variety of protocols for dealing with lofty temperatures. After all, China contains a multitude of ecosystems and climates—and some of them sizzle for much of the year.
One easy tip? Avoid ice-cold beverages. In TCM, tea is sipped hot or just slightly chilled year-round—never frigid. The belief is that cold beverages interfere with digestion. Traditional Chinese Medicine also recommends green, lemon, mint and chrysanthemum teas for summer.
In addition, people in blazing climates often sip hot drinks because doing so precipitates sweating—which is key to the body’s natural way of managing heat. As the sweat evaporates, people cool down.
With the season of swimming, sunbathing and sandals upon us, let’s dive deep into a selection of teas that we think will help you embrace the parade of heat before us.
Teas for Cooling Down: Chrysanthemum

Few botanicals offer as many health advantages as chrysanthemum, a flower native to East Asia and northeastern Europe. Chrysanthemums, also known as simply mums, find their greatest diversity in China—and no culture has explored and celebrated chrysanthemum like the Chinese.
Chinese people tap chrysanthemum, which they call Ju Jua and brew as a tea, to help mitigate headaches and dizziness. They treat colds and flus with Ju Jua, lubricate dry eyes with it and even leverage it to lower blood pressure. Chrysanthemum tea, too, serves as spectacular calming botanical; people sip it to cope with stress.
But it’s also widely celebrated for its ability to help keep the body cool during summer.
We add chrysanthemum to several of our blends, including organic Chrysanthemum Green Tea. All of them will help you handle the heat. But we also recommend just trying it on its own—it’s so lovely, and highly perfumed.
Teas for Cooling Down: Moroccan Mint

The inland parts of Morocco, which include cities like Marrakech, routinely see temperatures over 100 degrees in July and August. And what do Moroccans drink, in vast abundance? Green tea! Specifically, blends containing a kind of green tea called gunpowder combined with mint.
The style, known globally as Moroccan mint tea, combines two classic cool-down ingredients—green tea and mint—in one drink. Moroccans drink so much of it that the country ranks 7th in the world for per capita tea consumption. For them, tea symbolizes hospitality, friendship and social gatherings.
We adore sipping our blend of Chinese gunpowder tea with spearmint—especially in summer. When sipped at room temperature or gently cooled with an ice cube, we find that it helps us deal with stifling summer temperatures.
Moroccans spike their brews—liberally—with sugar. We think the sweetener is optional, and might prefer honey. No matter how you savor Moroccan Mint, however, you’ll love it.
Teas for Cooling Down: Cloud Chaser (Organic)

The lemon balm and peppermint in this dreamy tea help our bodies adjust to climbing temperatures. But it also contains classic calming botanicals, like lavender and rose petals. And then there’s St. John’s Wort, a flowering plant native to much of Europe and Asia, as well as parts of Africa. Today, it’s widespread in the temperate parts of the world.
Naturopathic doctors commonly advise people struggling with depression or stress to take St. John’s Wort. We think the herb’s inclusion in this heat-beating blend is one of the tea’s secret weapons. Just as other botanicals lend a hand to a too-warm body, the St. John’s Wort ratchets back the stress. Perfect!
Teas for Cooling Down: Enchanted Forest Green

We thrill to this tea all summer long. It rests on a foundation of green tea—and as a result counts as one of those good-for-summer teas among the Chinese. But it’s also flavored with coconut shreds, which delivers us a a breezy, beachy frame of mind. The rose petals also help the body handle heat. And it’s got green mate, too. This South American caffeinated shrub is widely consumed in sweltering patches of South America. We think it brings something to the tea party that contributes toward the need for daily summer cool downs.