Too much Pu-Erh = stomachache?

Hi Mike,
Pu-erh was actually recommended to me as being the least acidic of black teas, some people drink it when they have a stomach ache but it seems more popular to drink it after meals when you have indigestion or something.

You said you had two big pots full, how big were your pots? Maybe it was from drinking too much caffeine? I know if I drink too much tea in one day I will get heartburn.

hope that helps. :)
Amy

From the color of the tea, it looks like a shu. Shu puerh usually doesn’t upset stomach as easily as sheng puerh, and sometimes shu puerh even helps with stomach problems. But if you brew the tea into a color similar to the one in the picture of the tea profile page, it could be quite dark and strong. For that level of strength, if you drink from small cups (smaller than 2 oz.) and drink very slowly, that might be ok. But it could upset the stomach.

Overall, I think it’s a good idea to drink tea with full or half full stomach. Dark puerh can work up your stomach. When I have puerh in the Chinese restaurant with my meal, I can eat a lot more :-) If you have a lot of puerh after a meal, you may get hungry again soon, or need more food soon.

This won’t be very helpful to you, but I think some people are just bothered more by certain teas (just like foods). I find pu-erh and green tea can both make my stomache upset and I have become quite averse to them because of this. However, most people I know find those to be calming. : (

I might not be of much help,
but when I started drinking pu erh I got upset stomach.
I was buying random cheap pu erh and the low quality was the problem.

I had almost given up on pu erh tea and then I tasted some from zhizhengtea and I had no problem and the taste was amazing compared to anything I had tasted. Jkteashop has some nice onces too but you have to choose some of peak or jk choice.

thanks for the info, folks! really appreciate the details.

I was chugging that stuff, I had about 12 steepings in a taster-size cup, so that was quite a lot. Also maybe mostly on an empty stomach. I’ll definitely try some Pu-Erh again but be sure to have it more casually and slowly and not chug it down… maybe also have some breakfast before it!

Thanks!

I agree with the opinions here that ripe pu’erh is great for stomach protection. And here are some tips when you drink pu’erh tea:

1. Don’t drink tea when you are in empty stomach
2. Brew it for a short period of time to get ideal results
3. Don’t drink tea too close to bedtime
4. Keep your tea set clean
5. Brew your tea with a proper method

I’ve had the same problem with drinking black (shu) pu’er tea. I figure that since this tea is meant for indegestion, too heavy a balance (drinking it on an empty stomach) of it in our systems was probably the problem.

OMG I’m glad I found this post. It happened with me also. I had some Two Hills Pu-erh and it really trashed my stomach pretty severely, in stark contrast with most other teas I drink.
As an herbalist and nutritionist who has drank many different teas over the years I would say that there’s something definitely different with this tea. Perhaps it is the artificial fermenting process they use (not the really slow one but the newer, fast method) which does something. Whatever it was, I threw the rest of the tea away because my stomach could not handle it.

There’s multiple reasons but the most common ones are:

- Drinking on an empty stomach. This actually applies to all teas but puer can have a bit of a stronger effect

- If you aren’t used to drinking puer much, it can cause stomach discomfort. It has ‘warming’ digestive properties, according to the Chinese view so in some cases, too much too soon doesn’t make your stomach happy. You have to gradually up the amount over time

- The puer quality itself isn’t the best

I’m guessing it’s likely the second one for you if you haven’t had it much in the past since you had 2 pots

White and green teas or raw puerhs can be very rough on the stomach, especially if you haven’t eaten anything.
In fact, I remember the first time I tried to drink Matcha tea, I had it on an empty stomach. I felt so incredibly sick, I was convinced I was going to throw up (luckily I didn’t). This happened 2 or 3 times, so I thought it was the Matcha’s fault. But I simply didn’t know that this was not abnormal at all on an empty stomach.

I just noticed that this post is 5 years old…