Ⅲ.Mild Nature as Drink
Pu’er tea has a mild nature, which is reflected in the unique characteristics of high-quality Pu’er tea, such as bright color, mellow and thick taste, simple shape, nature, safety and health.Therefore, drinking Pu’er tea is warm and non-irritating to stomach.The beneficial components of Pu’er tea will not be excreted quickly, so it has a strong repairing effect on human body.It is with these fundamental substances that Pu’er tea has a magical and unique health-preserving effect.Therefore, drinking Pu’er tea can make people physically and mentally healthy.Since everyone has different physical situations, we should properly choose our own drinking methods, and select the appropriate drinking frequency according to the taste and flavor of tea, so as to preserve and keep healthy by drinking Pu’er tea.From the perspective of ancient Chinese medicine theory,tea is a kind of medicine.For medicine, nature and taste should be distinguished.The sun-dried crude tea has a bitter, sweet and cold nature.Bitterness can clear away relieve inflammation and sweetness is beneficial to heat and spleen.After fermentation and aging, the tea gradually has a mild nature, which is suitable for groups with different physical situations.According to the records in Compendium of Materia Medica,“ Shizhen once said: Tea has a bitter taste and a cold nature, which is the most Yin food (Yin here means cold nature)and can relieve inflammation best after aging storage.Inflammation may result in various diseases, so reduction of inflammation can clear way disease.The inflammation can be divided into five levels, and classified as fire heat and internal heat.Young and strong people who have healthy stomachs often have more heat in hearts,lungs, spleens and stomachs, so they are suitable to drink tea.Warm tea can lower the heat by the cold nature, while hot tea can clear away its coldness with the reduction of heat, which can also relieve the poison of alcohol and food and make people feel refreshed and energetic.These are all effects of tea.”Tea has various active effects on human body, and the tea extract has a coordinated and comprehensive effect after entering the internal organs of human body, which improves the health status of tea drinkers by influencing the metabolic process of human body.
表6-1 普洱茶养生与体质匹配
普洱茶保健功效与品饮频率息息相关，普洱茶作为后发酵茶，其滋味在经加工中微生物的作用和贮藏过程中的氧化等作用后，口感由浓强刺激转变为醇和，醇和的口感可以促进品饮者饮用普洱茶的频率，达到更好的养生功效。普洱茶在陈化过程中，有效功能成分增多，内含物协调性更好，可以有效改善机体免疫系统，调节体内微生物环境，达到味更醇、性更温、效更佳的效果。
Tab.6-1 Matching between health-preserving effect of Pu’er tea and physical situation
表6-2 普洱生茶、熟茶的滋味和适饮人群
Tab.6-2 Taste and suitable drinking group of raw and fermented Pu’er tea
The health-preserving effect of Pu’er tea is closely related to drinking frequency.As a kind of post-fermented tea, the taste of Pu’er tea changes from strong and fiery to mellow after the action of microorganisms in processing and oxidation in storage.The mellow taste can promote the frequency of drinking Pu’er tea and achieve better health-preserving effect.During the aging process of Pu’er tea, the effective functional ingredients are increased, and the contained substances are coordinated better, which can effectively improve the immune system of the body and regulate the microbial environment in the body, thus achieving more mellow taste, milder nature and better effect.