Our thanks to acupuncturist Viola Huang-Beck of huangbeckacupuncture.com and santarosacommunityacupuncture.com for providing us with the following information. Rice vinegar puer is used to strengthen the lungs during these times. Watch the video and read the post that follows. Viola also mentioned that puer tea helps improve circulation. This is important because Covid-19 can cause blood clotting.

The following article was provided to us by Viola:

Translation and Comments in the following post.

(I am posting this on behalf Min Zhu, who has studied with Dr. Huang Huang for years, and is currently the chief editor for the English translation of Huang Huang’s Guide to Clinical Application of Jingfang (4th ed.), which will be published later this year.)

Hot Rice Vinegar Tea
Tips for preventing lung diseases and assisting recovery
Pour boiled water into a cup of fermented Pu’er tea (leaf); once the tea is ready, add 3-4 drops of rice vinegar. Drink it while it is hot in small sips. Drink a few servings until there is mild sweating and warming sensation all over the body. It is particularly great if there is sticky sweat.
According to the five movements and six qi theory, in the years of Gengzi, the lung qi tends to be exuberant. This lung qi is also called the metal qi, which causes dryness and fluid loss. After the loss of body fluid, the liver wood cannot be conserved as it is restrained and affected by the metal qi.
Five-phases theory states: Normally, metal (lung) restrains wood (liver); however, when liver is weak, lung overwhelms it, rendering the liver even weaker. As spring is the season of liver, from this mechanism, we may explain why there is the present covid-19 outbreak at this time of the year.
All of the symptoms of covid-19 indicate dryness. This dryness is not hot dryness, but Yangming and Taiyin dryness, which corresponds to cool dryness of the lungs and large intestines. As a result, we see dry mouth, dry throat, cry cough and constipation.
Rice vinegar tonifies the liver yin and assists the liver to rise. As the liver qi is engendered, the fluid can be steamed upward. Pu’er tea can further promote dredging of the water passage (i.e. sweating) on the top, and downbearing (relaxing the bowels) on the lower side.

In this year, always pay attention to replenishing fluids, maintaining stomach qi, especially to nourish the lung and nourish yin.

Edited:
Further notes added by Min:
1) It is better to drink it sip by sip from a small cup, not to chug it with a huge mug.
2) For pu’er, it should be fermented pu’er
3) If pu’er is unavailable, go for other fermented tea like oolong or black tea, as they work better to engender and effuse the wood qi.

End of article.

For a more Western exploration about how puer tea may help fight the coronavirus please see these studies:

How Puer Tea May Fight the Coronavirus.

Why does Acupuncturist Viola Huang-Beck choose Pure Puer Tea to use in her clinics? We originally became aware of Acupuncturist Viola Huang-Beck through one of her patients to whom she had prescribed puer tea to improve his cholesterol. You can listen to Viola in this video: