Wong Lo Kat

WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE | BUSINESS SCHOOL | Mini Case

CHAI, Jing yuan

CHEN, Ling li

HUANG, Lu

Wong Lo Kat: Drink it to prevent inflammation

Westerners carry the idea of a quick drink in the street to quench a sudden onslaught of thirst is a can of soda. A sweet fizzy concoction of most bizarrely named chemicals: Corn syrup, phosphoric acid, caffeine and etc. That, if you think about it, tastes like nothing found in the natural world. The fact that some of commercial sodas like Coca Cola are routinely used to clean windshields or accumulator contacts does not seem to hinder their worldwide popularity.

Unlike westerners, in China, people think highly of those drinks made from natural materials, especially herbal. Because according to traditional Chinese medical science, herbal medicine could prevent and treat diseases. Matching this, ordinarily drinking something made from herbal is good to keep health. This belief is a common medical care throughout East Asia and practiced for thousands of years.

Herbal tea is rooted in Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces in south China, “commonly known as LIONG CHAI (Cantonese) or LIANG CHA (Mandarin) that Chinese treat as traditional remedy brew from a variety of herbs and plants to help cool down excessive body heat, reducing the risk of inflammation and common cold.”1

Inflammation is unique description of health condition in China which caused by excessive body heat ingested from high calorie food like fried food, hot pot and spicy things. Also, staying up late and irregular daily life are the reasons of it. The characters of inflammation are sore throats, canker sores, dryness-heat in body, constipation, acnes, violent-tempered, short-tempered and chest stuffiness.

History & Background of Wong Lo Kat

Among numerous tradition varieties of herbal teas with divergent efficacies, Wong Lo Kat was the most famous one. “Wong Lo Kat is the Cantonese transliteration of its name in Chinese characters.”2 Wong Lo...