Black Bean Calming Tea (Hei Dou An Shen Cha)

Why people make this tea

It is one of the most exhausting experiences a new parent faces: a baby who simply will not settle — crying at odd hours, sleeping fitfully, impossible to soothe. In Cantonese food therapy, one traditional explanation for this pattern in young infants is uncleared “fetal heat” (tai re) — a residual internal heat that the baby may have accumulated before birth if the mother ate warming foods during pregnancy. Whether or not one subscribes to that framework, this little three-ingredient tea has been recommended by Nourilo to hundreds of worried parents over the years, and the community feedback has been encouraging: many report that after two or three days of the tea, their baby’s sleep visibly improves. The formula is notably gentle — black bean is neutral in nature, liquorice is mild and sweet, and rush pith is only slightly cooling — making this one of the more balanced and reassuring options in infant food therapy.