It's summertime in the Philippines and it's just too hot to drink coffee (hot coffee) except for when it's before 9 am. Only someone more insane than I would any drink any kind of coffee other than iced coffee after that hour of the day.

I switched from hot coffee to iced tea and plain ice water when the weather started to become unbearably hot. Lukewarm water, or even chilled water from the dispenser, just doesn't cut it.

Does Hot Coffee Cool You Down?

If you listen and believe some of the old-timers, it does. It really doesn't. It makes you sweat (perspire) and air blowing against the sweat is what cools you down. What happens if you're already sweating? It does nothing for you at all, except make you feel hotter than you already are.

If you're already hot and you drink hot coffee, you're going to sweat profusely. Sweating causes dehydration and sweating profusely can cause you to dehydrate faster than you may realize. That's a dangerous situation to be in, regardless of what you drink.

Iced Tea and Iced Coffee

In some places, iced coffee is preferred over iced tea. The Philippines is not such a place. Iced tea (with lemon) is served in every restaurant I've been to here. Iced coffee is never served (but you can buy it in the stores).

I don't know about anyone else, but iced coffee just doesn't work like iced tea. Iced tea cools me down quick. Perhaps it's because I drink it faster than I can drink ice water. I can't do that with iced coffee and as expensive as iced coffee is, I really wouldn't want to do that anyway.

I still have an iced tea maker sitting in the kitchen that I haven't used even once. I still have jars of instant Nestea in the cabinet and I won't be using the iced tea maker until those jars are empty. I still don't have any teabags either. I'm sure I'll be doing the iced tea making thing when the instant tea runs out. That is, if summer continues to drag on like it did last year.

Iced Tea instead of Ice Water

I have never been able to drink ice water quickly, although my wife can guzzle a glass of it without stopping. I don't know why I'm any different. I can drink iced tea like that, but not ice water.

Ice water would be considered healthier, but if I want to cool down, nothing works better or faster than iced tea. I've tried it with fruit juices and other things and still go back to drinking iced tea.

(Image source: The Myth of Perfection: If You Want to Live, You Have to Grow at Totalpossibility)

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Unlike coffee, the many kinds of tea are not produced from multiple species. The different varieties of tea come from one plant, the camellia sinensis. I'm not talking about teas (like herbal tea) which do not come from the tea plant; I'm specifically talking about the varieties made from the tea plant.

Tea is Classified by the Producing Technique

The traditional tea consumed by most Americans is black tea. It's the same plant used for green tea, so green tea isn't any healthier for you than black tea in its original form. Here are the classifications:

• White tea: Un-Wilted and unoxidized
• Yellow tea: Un-wilted and unoxidized but allowed to yellow
• Green tea: Wilted and unoxidized
• Oolong: Wilted, bruised, and partially oxidized
• Black tea: Wilted, crushed, and fully oxidized
• Post-fermented tea: Green Tea that has been allowed to ferment/compost

What about Red Tea?

When my family moved to Hawaii in the 70s, and I was a teenager, my parents planted a unique hedgerow. It was a repeating row in an order than included Tea, Red Tea and Bird of Paradise. The tea plant was the tea plant I'm talking about. The red tea plant is something else. Although it looks like the regular tea plant, it's not red version of it. Frankly, I don't know what it was.

How Tea is Consumed

I've always known about tea being consumed either cold (iced) or hot. The British like it hot, while most Americans like it iced. Unlike coffee, again, tea isn't used in candies and cakes and the leaves aren't eaten with chocolate.

Local Tea Varieties

I'm unaware of any tea that's grown locally. If I look at some of the packaging, I'd probably find out that some of what I think is imported is actually made in the Philippines.

I usually buy the instant NESTEA, without sugar or lemon flavoring added. I like to taste the tea, not the additives. Yes, I add sugar, but how much I add depends on how strong I make it. I like it iced and lightly sweetened, not heavily sweetened like the US southerners.

Unfortunately for me, most Filipinos like the added lemon, so the plain NESTEA is always hard to find.

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