What does Great Heat mean?

Great Heat is the twelfth solar term among the twenty-four solar terms. It means extremely hot, and Great Heat is the hottest season of the year.

Great Heat is the last solar term of summer. Dou Zhi B; the sun's ecliptic longitude is 120°; the festival is July 22-24 in the Gregorian calendar. "Shu" means hot, and "Great Heat" means extremely hot.

Greater summer is hotter than minor heat. It is the hottest solar term of the year, and the "humidity and heat" reach their peak at this time. The climate characteristics of the Great Heat: high temperatures and scorching heat, frequent thunderstorms and typhoons.

Extended information:

The Great Summer Festival coincides with the "three volts", which is the period with the most sunshine and the highest temperature in our country. It is said in ancient books that "the greater one is the extreme heat." The degree of heat in summer increases from small to severe. After the Great Heat, it is the beginning of autumn, which is in line with the law that extremes of things must reverse. This shows how hot the Great Heat is.

Since ancient times, people have had the custom of drinking Fu tea in the dog days of summer. Fu tea, as the name suggests, is a tea drunk in the dog days of summer. This kind of tea is brewed with more than ten Chinese herbal medicines such as honeysuckle, prunella vulgaris, and licorice. The finished tea has the effect of cooling and dispelling heat.

Many places in Guangdong have the custom of "eating fairy grass" during the summer season. Grass jelly, also known as jelly grass and jelly grass, is a herbaceous plant belonging to the Lamiaceae family and is an important medicinal and edible plant resource. Because of its miraculous heat-relieving effect, it is known as the "fairy grass". The dried stems and leaves can be made into jelly grass, which is called jelly in Guangdong and is a summery dessert.