Lophatherum and Rush Herb Tea

Why people make this tea

After a child runs a fever, sometimes a restless, irritable phase follows — trouble settling at night, mouth ulcers, dark yellow urine, or a flushed look without an obvious illness. In traditional Chinese food-therapy thinking, this is understood as residual heat in the heart channel, and the remedy is a simple, mild herbal tea rather than another round of medicine.

Lophatherum (dan zhu ye) is a slender bamboo-leaf herb widely used in Cantonese households; rush pith (deng xin cao) is a traditional infant calming herb. Together they make one of the gentlest clearing teas in the Cantonese repertoire — light-tasting, easy to prepare, and safe enough to serve as an infant “opening milk” tea in very small amounts.