teateateatea-

I don't know, but I also drink tons of tea. I average about two 6-cup pots a day.

Ian

Well, first one has to agree on what's meant by kuding cha, apparently--Mydnight (I think) was asking for a tea by the same name a few threads ago, and he clearly and definitely meant an actual green tea. However, in the US, what we get marketed to us under the name "kuding cha" is an herbal, a kind of holly leaf. Hopefully that's what you mean...

I am not a doctor, but I do drink holly-leaf kuding cha and it seems to help when I'm about to catch a cold. I have one now, mind you, but I normally get colds quite frequently and have had symptoms back off within a few hours of drinking kuding. That's my experience, for what it's worth.

You probably already have a source in mind, but in case you don't, Teaspring.com has the stuff pretty cheap.

Good luck getting over your cold so you can taste tea again!

Jennifer

Yes, the kuding that I was referring to was a Chinese green tea. heh.

Holly leaf? Interesting. What will that do for us, doc? heh.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

Long time no see man!

Good for cold....good for colds...

I know a good remedy that's good for colds but it doesn't have anything to do with Chinese tea per say. Get yourself some good dried/fresh peppermint and make a tea out of it. It will help to relieve some symptoms of a headcold.

In college when I would get sick with a bad cold, I would go buy a gallon of water and 2 bulbs of garlic. I would eat 2 cloves of garlic before bed and sporadically throughout the day drink water until I finished the gallon. It will surely clean you out of whatever nonsense you've managed to get yourself infected with! heh.

As far as Chinese tea goes, they say all of them are good for colds except pu'er. I'm not sure why, but I think it has something to do with the hot/cold aspect of Chinese medicine. I would say Ren Sheng Wu (ginseng), though!

get well soon!

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

Well, as far as taste goes, it makes you wish you were dead. :-P No, not really, but it's incredibly bitter. At first I was inclined to spit it out (or, forgive my saying so, not keep it down--our instincts tell us that bitter=poison, after all), but in a way it's so strange an experience that it's worth trying out. It's amazing what one can school oneself to drink, is all I'm saying.

Supposedly either good kuding-cha (holly leaf still), or any kuding-cha brewed "well" actually yields a sweet aftertaste. Maybe I'm doing something wrong!

Jennifer

Mydnight wrote in news:dkmfr0lsh59tr1gh48hv9nt08v8amfegk7 @4ax.com:

Hmm. The mate plant (yerba mate) is supposed to be related to holly, and many people swear up and down it's incredibly good for you. It's been too long since I had any decent yerba mate, but it seemed to produce a good feeling when I used to drink it a lot. It might be nice to sip when one has a cold.

"Holly family (Aquifoliaceae), related to holly"

If you're doing something wrong, it's an error I repeatedly committed a couple of years ago as I worked my way through a quarter pound of those titanic leaves. But there seem to be (at least) two different kinds of kuding cha. I recently got a sample from China, courtesy of a friend, of something called Qing Shan Lu Shui, which looks nothing like the giant-leaf stuff and has a certain sweetness to its herbaceous, non-camellia-sinensis taste. This stuff is apparently considered kuding, but whether it's closely related botanically I have no idea.

/Lew

Wow! Yet another "kuding" to add to the mix. Between the variety of herbs/teas out there, the various language complexities, and the marketing twists and turns between China and points West, tea can be quite a confusing beverage. Fortunately those who love it don't seem to mind. :)

Jennifer (happily confused)

Ya, I started a post on this before about if kuding cha was a class and a specific type of tea. Kuding basically means bitter. The stuff that is sold domestically (US and hereabouts) apparently is the holly leaf stuff while in China the Kuding cha either is the large leaf variety that's rolled tight or the qing shan lv shui (blue/green mountain green water is translation). The property of the tea that brings people back to it is the bitter/sweet quality that's to be expected after drinking it.

Use a clear glass and pour your boiling water on top of it. It's really a show tea and much can be appreciated by it's appearance.

I found out from someone that it's considered a slight subclass of green tea as well as a type of tea. I had never heard of the holly variant that is mentioned in this post before coming to this NG.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

So you're sure it's c. sinensis? To me it really doesn't taste like real tea. (But really, the range of tastes you get from real tea is so vast that maybe I shouldn't say that.)

/Lew

I wonder if you had good qing shan lv shui or something else marketed as it or some poor quality stuff? The stuff I had tasted like tea, but I'm not sure the scientific name you have there....educate me. heh.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

If I may...

Real tea comes from the tea plant, Camellia Sinensis. Herbals/tisanes/etc. are commonly referred to as "tea" because of the way the beverage is brewed and are not actually teas simply because they don't come from a Camellia Sinensis, i.e. tea, plant.

HTH.