Yuen Kut Lam's Kam Wo Char tea...aka Plauge Tea.

I was dealing with a fairly bad cold during the last half of last week and into the weekend.  Standard medicine works well on me, but unless I’m bed-ridden, I tend to just ride it out during the inevitable couple of times per year I get sick.  Well, last week, a good friend of mine gave me a box of Kam Wo Char tea, which he affectionately had labeled as “plague tea”.  I don’t know the specific ingredients, I don’t know if it’s a traditional remedy, and I don’t know how popular it is amongst Chinese people, but I do know this: Yuen Kut Lam’s Kam Wo Char tea is absolutely amazing.

Within five minutes of finishing my first cup, I felt noticeably better.  The all-over achy feeling associated with a cold had been cut in half, my fever was down a little, and my throat felt significantly less raw.  I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it completely eradicated my cold, because it didn’t…but holy crap, did it make me feel better during my recovery.  The tea comes packed in tight bricks in small cardboard boxes, which are then wrapped with paper to help seal them from air.  Using one of Brittnie’s (many) tea pots, I was able to get just under 40 oz of tea (through multiple steepings) out of a single “brick”.

The smell is quite pleasant, although it strangely resembles Japanese Seafood Udon soup.  The flavor is a little on the bitter side, but a teaspoon of honey helps balance it out (you could also use sugar, but honey really does work best.)  This stuff can be found in your local Asian market, and can also be ordered on Amazon.  Next time you have a cold or a fever, I VERY highly recommend you drink some of this.  It isn’t going to cure you or anything, but you’ll feel a hell of a lot better after drinking it.