5 Best Herbal Teas to Soothe a Sore Throat

Best Tea for Sore Throat and Cough: 10 Teas That Help

Written and medically reviewed by Veronique Claes d’Erckenteel, D.C., chiropractor since 1991 · Last reviewed: 20 October 2026

The best tea for a sore throat and cough is a warm ginger tea with lemon and honey: ginger calms inflammation, lemon adds vitamin C and honey coats your throat and eases the cough. Chamomile is best at night, sage and licorice root for a really painful throat, marshmallow root or slippery elm for a raw, burning throat, and thyme for a chesty cough. Drink them warm, not scalding, three to five cups a day, and give honey only from 12 months. For a cold or flu, combine tea with rest, salt water gargles, steam, chicken soup and oil pulling. See a doctor for a high fever, trouble breathing or a sore throat without a cough that comes on suddenly with white spots on the tonsils.

When your throat burns and every cough scrapes it raw, a hot cup of tea is the first thing most of us reach for. It’s not just comfort: a hot drink eases a sore throat, cough, runny nose and tiredness within minutes, more than the same drink at room temperature (Sanu and Eccles, 2008). Choose the right herbs and your tea does even more. Here are the ten teas I trust most, how to make them, which one fits your symptoms, and the home remedies I add for a cough, a cold or the flu. It’s part of our cough and cold series; for the cough itself, see how to stop coughing.

Table of Contents

• Why Tea Helps a Sore Throat and Cough
• 10 Best Teas for a Sore Throat and Cough
• Which Tea for Which Symptom?
• How to Make Tea for a Sore Throat
• Home Remedies for Cough and Cold
• Oil Pulling for Your Throat
• Influenza Cough Remedies
• Cold, Flu or Strep?
• Tea Safety: Children, Pregnancy and Medicines
• When to See a Doctor
• Frequently Asked Questions

Why Tea Helps a Sore Throat and Cough

• Warmth relaxes the throat, loosens mucus and makes your nose run, which clears it. Hot water and chicken soup even speed up how fast mucus moves out of your nose (Saketkhoo et al., 1978).
• Fluid keeps mucus thin and your throat moist. A dry throat hurts more and coughs more.
• The herbs add their own effects: anti-inflammatory (ginger, chamomile, licorice), coating (marshmallow, slippery elm, honey), cooling (peppermint) and loosening (thyme).
• The steam you breathe in while you sip soothes your nose and throat.

10 Best Teas for a Sore Throat and Cough

1. Ginger tea with lemon and honey

My first choice for a sore throat with a cold or flu. Ginger warms you up, calms inflammation and eases nausea, lemon adds vitamin C and freshness, and honey coats your throat and calms the cough. A Cochrane review found honey eased cough in children better than no treatment (Oduwole et al., Cochrane), and a review of adult studies found it improved cough and other symptoms of upper airway infections (review summary, 2020). Simmer 3 to 4 thin slices of fresh ginger in a cup of water for 10 minutes, add the juice of half a lemon and stir in a teaspoon of honey once it’s cooled a little. A clove, a cinnamon stick or a pinch of turmeric make it even more warming. More recipes in honey for cough.

2. Chamomile tea

The best tea for a sore throat at night. Chamomile is traditionally used for inflammation of the mouth and throat and to help you relax and sleep, and its flavonoids, especially apigenin, have anti-inflammatory effects (Srivastava et al., 2010). Steep a heaped teaspoon of dried flowers in a cup of boiling water, covered, for 10 minutes. You can also gargle with it once it has cooled. Avoid it if you’re allergic to ragweed or daisies.

3. Sage tea

Sage is the classic European throat herb, and one of the few with a placebo-controlled trial: a sage throat spray clearly eased the pain of acute pharyngitis within two hours (Hubbert et al., 2006). Steep a teaspoon of dried sage (or a few fresh leaves) for 10 minutes. Drink half and gargle with the rest. Sage isn’t for pregnancy, breastfeeding or epilepsy, and not for more than a couple of weeks at a time.

4. Licorice root tea

Naturally sweet, soothing and anti-inflammatory. In surgery patients, licorice gargles before a breathing tube was placed reduced sore throat afterwards (Agarwal et al., 2009; meta-analysis, 2018). Simmer a teaspoon of dried root for 10 minutes. Drink no more than one to two cups a day and for no longer than a week or two: licorice can raise blood pressure and lower potassium. Skip it with high blood pressure, heart or kidney problems, or in pregnancy.

5. Marshmallow root or slippery elm tea

For a raw, burning throat. Both are full of mucilage, a slippery gel that coats the throat like a soft bandage. A tea combining licorice, slippery elm and marshmallow root eased sore throat pain within 30 minutes in a placebo-controlled trial (Brinckmann et al., 2003). Marshmallow root works best as a cold infusion: soak a tablespoon of root in a cup of cold water for a few hours, strain and warm gently. Slippery elm powder can be stirred straight into warm water. Take them two hours apart from medicines, because the gel can slow how well they’re absorbed.

6. Thyme tea

The tea I choose when a sore throat comes with a chesty cough. Thyme loosens mucus and calms the airways; a thyme and ivy extract reduced coughing fits in adults with acute bronchitis in a placebo-controlled trial (Kemmerich et al., 2006). Steep a teaspoon of dried thyme for 10 minutes, covered so the oils don’t escape, and add honey. More in our tea for cough guide.

7. Peppermint tea

Peppermint contains menthol, which makes your nose feel clearer and cools a sore throat. Menthol doesn’t actually open the nose, but it makes breathing feel easier (Eccles et al., 1990). Add honey and lemon for a homemade honey citrus mint tea. Skip it if you have reflux, because peppermint relaxes the valve at the top of the stomach, and don’t give strong peppermint to children under 6.

8. Elderflower or elderberry tea

Elderflower is a traditional tea for colds and flu that makes you sweat out a fever. Elderberry is better studied: it shortened colds in air travellers (Tiralongo et al., 2016). Use dried flowers or a ready-made elderberry tea, and never eat raw elderberries, which can make you sick. Our elderberry syrup recipes are in DIY homemade cough syrups.

9. Echinacea tea

Best at the very first tickle in your throat. Echinacea may slightly lower your chance of catching a cold (Cochrane review), and an echinacea herbal tea eased cold and flu symptoms faster in one placebo-controlled trial (Lindenmuth and Lindenmuth, 2000). Avoid it if you’re allergic to daisy family plants or have an autoimmune disease.

10. Green tea

Green tea is rich in antioxidants and makes a good gargle once cooled. It contains caffeine, so don’t drink it before bed, and choose a caffeine free herbal tea in the evening.

Black tea? Fine with honey and lemon during the day, but it contains caffeine and doesn’t add much for your throat. Turmeric, cinnamon and clove are lovely additions to any of the teas above: turmeric for inflammation, cinnamon and clove for warmth and a slightly numbing effect.

Which Tea for Which Symptom?

How to Make Tea for a Sore Throat

• Cover your cup while it steeps, so the healing oils stay in the tea instead of the air.
• Steep longer: 10 minutes for herbs, longer than you would for normal tea.
• Roots simmer, flowers steep: simmer ginger and licorice; pour boiling water over chamomile, thyme and sage.
• Add honey when it’s warm, not boiling, so you don’t damage it.
• Drink it warm, not scalding. Very hot drinks can burn an already sore throat.
• Gargle, then swallow: sage, chamomile and licorice tea work as a gargle too.
• Three to five cups a day, with plenty of water in between.

Home Remedies for Cough and Cold

Tea is one part of the picture. These are the cold and cough remedies I use at home alongside it.

Rest and sleep

Your body heals while you sleep. People who sleep less than seven hours are almost three times more likely to catch a cold than those who sleep eight or more (Cohen et al., 2009).

Salt water gargle

½ teaspoon of salt in a glass of warm water, gargle and spit, every few hours. Regular gargling with plain water lowered the number of colds by about a third in a Japanese trial (Satomura et al., 2005).

Honey on a spoon

A teaspoon of honey before bed calms a night cough. From 12 months only.

Steam and eucalyptus

Breathe steam over a bowl of hot water with a towel over your head, with 3 to 5 drops of eucalyptus oil. Eucalyptus in the diffuser from age 3; for ages 2 to 3 use a kids’ blend; no oils under 2.

Chicken soup

Grandma was right: chicken soup calmed the movement of inflammatory white blood cells in the lab (Rennard et al., 2000), and it hydrates you and is easy to swallow.

Zinc at the first sign

Zinc lozenges started within 24 hours of the first symptoms can shorten a cold (Science et al., 2012). Don’t take them for more than a week, and they can leave a bad taste.

Vitamin C

Taken regularly, vitamin C slightly shortens colds (Douglas and Hemilä, Cochrane). I take liposomal vitamin C, which is better absorbed, at 2 to 3 times the label dose while I’m ill. Too much can cause loose stools; cut back if it does, and skip high doses if you’ve had kidney stones.

Moist air

A cool mist humidifier in the bedroom keeps your throat and nose from drying out at night. Clean it daily.

More cold remedies in head cold remedies, and for throat pain with a cough, strep throat and throat pain remedies.

Oil Pulling for Your Throat

Your mouth and throat are one system: everything you swallow, including the bacteria living on your teeth, gums and tongue, passes over your throat. I find oil pulling helps the bacterial balance and saliva production in your mouth, which in turn can help smooth your throat back to normal. Saliva is your mouth’s own rinse: it washes away germs, keeps the tissue moist and carries natural antibacterial proteins, and swishing oil gets it flowing.

The research is about the mouth rather than the throat, but it’s encouraging: coconut oil pulling reduced plaque and gum inflammation within a month (Peedikayil et al., 2015) and lowered tooth decay bacteria in saliva about as well as an antiseptic mouthwash (Kaushik et al., 2016).

How: swish a tablespoon of coconut oil slowly through your teeth for 10 to 15 minutes, morning and evening. Don’t gargle with it and never swallow it. Spit it into the bin (not the sink), rinse with warm water, then brush your teeth. Not for young children who might swallow it.

The oil in my bathroom cabinet

Coconut oil for oil pulling and chest rubs

Tea soothes your throat from the inside; oil pulling looks after your mouth. Swishing coconut oil helps the balance of bacteria in your mouth and gets your saliva flowing, which helps a sore throat settle back to normal. This light oil is also my base for a eucalyptus chest rub on cold and flu nights.

• Light, odourless and liquid at any temperature, so it’s easy to swish and easy to blend
• Mix 1 to 2 drops of eucalyptus into a teaspoon for a soothing chest and neck rub (adults; from age 3, use 1 drop in 2 teaspoons)
• For oil pulling: a tablespoon, 10 to 15 minutes, spit it in the bin, never swallow it
• Check the label says it’s suitable for use in the mouth; if not, use cold pressed virgin coconut oil for oil pulling

Get the coconut oil I use

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Influenza Cough Remedies

The flu hits harder than a cold: high fever, chills, aching muscles, a headache, deep tiredness and a dry cough that can linger for weeks. The same remedies help, with a few additions:

• Real bed rest for the first days. Don’t push through the flu.
• Fluids all day: water, ginger tea, elderflower tea, broth. A fever dries you out fast.
• Elderberry: in a small trial, elderberry syrup helped people recover from the flu about four days sooner (Zakay-Rones et al., 2004), but a later, larger trial in an emergency department found no benefit (Macknin et al., 2020). Promising, not proven.
• Honey and thyme tea for the dry flu cough, and a humidifier at night.
• Pelargonium (South African geranium) may ease acute bronchitis and other airway infections (Timmer et al., Cochrane, 2013). Use a ready-made preparation and follow the label; not in pregnancy or with liver problems.
• Stay home until you’ve been fever free for 24 hours, to protect others.

People over 65, pregnant women, young children and people with asthma, heart disease, diabetes or a weak immune system are more likely to get complications from the flu, so call your doctor early if you’re in one of these groups.

Cold, Flu or Strep?

• Cold: starts slowly, with a scratchy throat, runny nose, sneezing and a cough. Mild or no fever.
• Flu: starts suddenly, with a high fever, chills, body aches, exhaustion and a dry cough.
• Strep throat: sudden, severe throat pain, fever, white spots on the tonsils, swollen neck glands, usually no cough or runny nose. Needs a test and a doctor. More in strep throat natural treatment.

Tea Safety: Children, Pregnancy and Medicines

• Babies under 12 months: no honey, ever. Ask your pediatrician before giving herbal teas.
• Children: weak chamomile, thyme, ginger or lime blossom tea, lukewarm. Honey from 12 months. No strong peppermint under 6.
• Pregnancy and breastfeeding: ginger and lemon tea in normal amounts are generally fine; avoid sage, licorice root and medicinal amounts of other herbs, and talk to your midwife.
• Medicines: licorice affects blood pressure and heart medication, marshmallow and slippery elm slow absorption, and chamomile, ginger and green tea can interact with blood thinners. Ask your pharmacist if you take regular medication.

When to See a Doctor

• Emergency (112 / 911): trouble breathing, chest pain, blue lips, drooling or being unable to swallow, confusion, a stiff neck, or a fever that won’t come down.
• Your GP, family doctor or pediatrician for a sudden sore throat with fever and no cough, white spots on the tonsils, a sore throat lasting more than a week, a cough lasting more than three weeks, or flu symptoms that improve and then get worse again.
• An ENT specialist (ear, nose and throat) for a hoarse voice lasting more than three weeks, or sore throats that keep coming back.
• A pulmonologist (lung specialist) for a cough that lingers for more than eight weeks.

Read more in when a cough needs a doctor.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best tea for a sore throat and cough?

Ginger tea with lemon and honey: ginger calms inflammation, lemon adds vitamin C and honey coats the throat and calms the cough. Thyme tea is a good choice for a chesty cough, chamomile at night.

Is chamomile tea good for a sore throat?

Yes. Chamomile is traditionally used for an inflamed mouth and throat, has anti-inflammatory compounds and helps you relax and sleep. Drink it warm or gargle with it once cooled. Avoid it with a ragweed allergy.

Is ginger tea good for a sore throat?

Yes. Ginger is warming and anti-inflammatory. Simmer fresh slices for 10 minutes and add lemon and honey for the best effect on both throat pain and cough.

What tea coats your throat?

Marshmallow root and slippery elm tea. Both contain mucilage, a slippery gel that forms a soothing layer over an irritated throat. Honey has a similar coating effect.

What are the best home remedies for cough and cold?

Rest, warm fluids and tea, honey (from 12 months), salt water gargles, steam with eucalyptus, chicken soup, a humidifier, zinc at the first sign and vitamin C. Oil pulling with coconut oil supports your mouth and throat.

What helps a flu cough?

Rest, plenty of fluids, honey and thyme tea, a humidifier at night and elderberry. See a doctor if you’re in a high risk group, have trouble breathing or your symptoms improve and then get worse.

Is honey and lemon tea good for a sore throat?

Yes. Honey coats the throat and calms coughing, and lemon adds vitamin C and helps cut through mucus. Add the honey once the water has cooled a little. Not for babies under 12 months.

Should tea for a sore throat be hot or cold?

Warm is best. Hot drinks ease a sore throat and cough more than room temperature drinks, but very hot drinks can burn an inflamed throat. Let it cool to a comfortable sipping temperature.

Recommended

• Strep Throat Natural Treatment
• Tea for Cough
• Honey for Cough
• Head Cold Remedies
• DIY Homemade Cough Syrups

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Veronique Cleas D'erckenteel

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