Does drinking tea cool you down?

Drinking a cold drink on a hot summer’s day seems to be the best way to help you stay cool, but is that really the case?

According to Professor Peter McNaughton at the University of Cambridge,  hot beverages, such as tea or hot water, will raise your core body temperature. And this makes you sweat at an increased rate (1).

Sounds unbelievable right?

People tend to think that because tea is hot, it heats up your body more. So how does this cool you down? Well, the heat goes straight to your core, causing your body to think you’re hotter than you really are. You’ll sweat more and divert hot blood to your skin, which can cause you to lose more heat than you gained from the drink (2). Drinking hot tea can cause the body to overreact with a lot of sweat, resulting in the cooling down of the body (3).


As sweat is the best source in cooling down your body, if you were all covered up it’s unlikely hot tea would cool you down without any sweat being produced. Sweating cools the body and when energy is released and you sweat, it gets absorbed into the air. Which means sweating more, and cooling more (4).

The best drink to stay cool and hydrated is water, but a hot beverage on a summer’s day is the next best option.

Another way to help cool you down on a hot day is ice lollies (the best tasting thing on a long Summer’s day!) and ice cubes in your drink. You can check out our other blog on how to make these using loose leaf tea to get that delicious refreshing taste on a hot day.

We have lots of loose-leaf tea for you to try! Here are our best sellers:

Looking at the science, we can see that hot tea IS scientifically proven to cool you down on a hot day. Sweat plays a big part in cooling you down quicker – but you of course need a hot drink to do this! Why not give it a try when you next go out on a hot day and need cooling down.


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