Tangerine Cake, Tangerine Peel, Ginger and Date Tea

Why people make this tea

Once children start school, respiratory infections follow close behind. The challenge for parents isn’t just treating the cough — it’s finding something the child will actually drink. Many cough remedies taste bitter or medicinal, and most children refuse them outright.

This tea solves that problem. Tangerine cake (ju bing) is a traditional preparation: ripe tangerines that have been processed, dried, and treated with salt or sugar until they develop a white coating on the surface. When brewed with ginger, tangerine peel, and red dates, the resulting tea is mildly sweet, gently spiced, and quite pleasant — something most children accept willingly.

There is something interesting about how citrus works here: fresh sweet oranges and mandarins are actually not recommended during coughs, because their sweetness can increase phlegm and worsen the cough. But the same fruit, once processed into tangerine cake, has the opposite effect — it helps move and resolve phlegm. Traditional food therapy is full of these kinds of context-dependent distinctions.

This tea is particularly recommended for cough that is worst in the early morning and at night, cough that comes back after a cold seems to have cleared, or cough that persists without obvious cause.