The Chinese preference for warm or hot water over cold water comes from a blend of traditional medicine beliefs, 20th-century public health campaigns, and cultural practices that have reinforced each other for generations. It’s not a single reason but a layered habit with roots in philosophy, hygiene, and family tradition.
The Traditional Medicine Explanation
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the spleen is considered a key organ in digestion, and it requires a moderate, warm temperature to function properly. The spleen works alongside the stomach to process and distribute nutrients from food and drink. When cold water or ice enters the system, TCM holds that the spleen’s ability to work effectively is diminished, meaning anything consumed afterward may not be fully digested. This isn’t just about an upset stomach. An imbalanced spleen is associated with fatigue, poor concentration, and muscle weakness, all symptoms that practitioners link to regularly consuming cold foods and beverages.
This framework connects to the broader concept of yin and yang balance within the body. Yang energy is warm, active, and energizing. When yang is deficient, a person may feel cold, pale, depressed, and lethargic. Drinking cold water is seen as introducing excess yin (cold) energy into the body, which suppresses the digestive “fire” needed to break down food. From this perspective, warm water supports the body’s natural warmth and keeps energy flowing, while cold water works against it. This logic also explains why warming spices like ginger, cinnamon, and rosemary are staples in Chinese cooking and herbal medicine, especially in winter.
Government Campaigns Made It a National Habit
While TCM provided the philosophical foundation, government policy turned warm water drinking into a widespread daily practice. Around the 1930s, the Republic of China launched the New Life Movement, which promoted drinking boiled water as a key part of public hygiene. At a time when waterborne diseases were common and clean drinking water was not reliably available, boiling water was a practical way to kill bacteria and parasites. The message was simple: boiled water is safe water.
After 1949, the government of the People’s Republic of China continued pushing the same message, calling on citizens to drink hot water to stay healthy. Workplaces, train stations, and public buildings were equipped with hot water dispensers, a feature still ubiquitous across China today. Over decades, the habit became so deeply embedded that drinking cold water started to feel not just unhealthy but genuinely uncomfortable for many people. What began as a sanitation measure became a cultural reflex passed from parents to children.
Postpartum Traditions Reinforce the Practice
One of the strongest examples of cold water avoidance in Chinese culture is “zuo yuezi,” the month-long postpartum confinement period. New mothers are expected to follow strict dietary rules, including avoiding all cold food and drink. Even bathing is traditionally done with boiled water, sometimes infused with wine or motherwort herb, rather than regular tap water. In rural areas, mothers commonly bathe with boiled water during this period. In urban areas, many women use a towel dampened with cooled boiled water to clean the skin instead.
The underlying belief is that a woman’s body is in a vulnerable, weakened state after childbirth, and cold exposure of any kind, whether from water, food, or air, could allow illness to enter the body. Modern health practitioners in China generally agree that bathing with warm water is fine and that boiled water with herbs isn’t strictly necessary. But the tradition itself remains powerful, and it teaches each new generation that cold water is something to be cautious about.
What the Science Actually Shows
There is some physiological basis for the idea that cold water affects the body differently than warm water, though not quite in the way TCM describes it. A study on healthy volunteers found that cold drinks (around 4°C) emptied from the stomach significantly more slowly than body-temperature drinks (37°C). After drinking a cold beverage, the stomach’s internal temperature dropped to about 21°C and took 20 to 30 minutes to return to normal body temperature. During that time, the initial rate of gastric emptying slowed considerably. So cold water does temporarily slow digestion, even if the effect is modest and short-lived.
Cold water also triggers a measurable nervous system response. When cold touches the face or neck area, it activates what’s known as the diving reflex, a set of automatic cardiovascular changes. Research published in JMIR Formative Research found that cold stimulation to the face and lateral neck increased vagal activity, which slowed the heart rate and shifted the body into a more parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) state. In practical terms, this means cold water can briefly alter your heart rhythm and cardiovascular activity. For most healthy people this is harmless, but it illustrates that the body does react to cold water in ways that go beyond simple temperature preference.
Modern China and Water Temperature Today
China’s current national dietary guidelines from 2022 recommend staying hydrated with multiple small water intakes throughout the day, suggesting about 1,700 ml for adult men and 1,500 ml for adult women in mild climates. The guidelines recommend plain water or tea over sugary drinks but don’t specify a required temperature. Officially, the emphasis has shifted from temperature to hydration itself.
In daily life, though, the warm water habit persists strongly. Restaurants serve hot water or tea by default. Thermoses and insulated water bottles are carried everywhere. Many Chinese people genuinely feel discomfort drinking cold water, especially first thing in the morning or during meals, not because they’ve been told to avoid it but because their bodies have adapted to warm beverages over a lifetime. For visitors or outsiders, the practice can seem unusual, but it reflects a coherent set of beliefs about health, hygiene, and bodily balance that has been reinforced across centuries of tradition and decades of public policy.