Let's Start With What the Sphincter Is Supposed to Do

At the bottom of your esophagus sits a ring of muscle called the lower esophageal sphincter, or LES.

Dr. Ken Brown often describes it as the lid on a pot.

When that lid is doing its job, stomach contents stay in the stomach.

When it relaxes or opens at the wrong time, stomach contents can move upward into the esophagus. That's when reflux can occur.

But the lid is only part of the story.

When we look at whether a food or beverage might affect reflux, there are several questions worth asking: Does it affect how well the LES holds? Does it affect how quickly the stomach empties? Does it change stomach acid? And does it affect tissue that's already irritated or sensitized?

That's why a simple list of "reflux-friendly teas" can be misleading.

We walk through the underlying physiology in What Is Acid Reflux? if you want to understand the mechanism first.

Is Ginger Good for Acid Reflux?

This is where the physiology gets interesting, because ginger appears to affect two different mechanisms, and they don't necessarily point in the same direction.

Ginger may increase LES relaxation during swallowing

Researchers gave 1 gram of dried ginger powder to 14 healthy young men and measured esophageal pressure for three hours.

Resting LES pressure didn't significantly change. However, the percentage of LES relaxation during swallowing increased, reaching statistical significance at several time points. Esophageal contraction velocity also decreased.

That doesn't automatically mean ginger causes reflux. The researchers weren't measuring acid exposure or reflux episodes, they were measuring esophageal motility. In fact, they suggested the increased relaxation might help explain ginger's traditional use for digestive symptoms such as gas, because a lid that opens more easily also lets gas escape more easily.

But from a reflux perspective, it raises an interesting question. If the LES is the lid on the pot, what happens when that lid opens more easily?

We don't yet have a clinical study that answers that.

Ginger may also help the stomach empty faster

Now for the opposite side of the story.

In a randomized, double-blind crossover study, 24 healthy volunteers received 1,200 mg of ginger or placebo before a meal. Gastric half-emptying time after ginger was 13.1 minutes, compared with 26.7 minutes after placebo, ginger roughly halved it. Ginger also increased the frequency of antral contractions, the muscular contractions involved in moving food through the stomach.

That's potentially relevant to reflux for a completely different reason. If the stomach isn't emptying efficiently, food and fluid remain there longer, which can increase gastric volume and pressure.

Using our pot analogy again: ginger may make the lid easier to open, but it may also help empty the pot faster.

We don't know yet which effect wins

And that's important to say plainly.

No study has directly measured esophageal acid exposure after ginger. The sphincter study involved only 14 healthy young men, used a single dose, and hasn't established whether ginger increases clinical reflux.

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health also lists heartburn as a possible side effect of oral ginger and does not list reflux as an indication.

So despite the enormous number of articles recommending ginger tea for acid reflux, the evidence doesn't allow us to confidently call ginger a reflux remedy. But it doesn't justify saying ginger universally makes reflux worse, either.

If ginger consistently makes you feel better, that's useful information. If it consistently makes your reflux worse, that's useful information too. The physiology gives us plausible reasons for both experiences.

About the Ginger Study You May Have Seen

You may come across claims that ginger has strong clinical evidence for reflux, sometimes accompanied by an impressive-looking odds ratio of 7.50.

That number comes from a systematic review that screened 6,608 records. But there's an important distinction: the review refers to ginger-containing supplements, not necessarily ginger used alone.

One relevant randomized trial evaluated a fixed combination of ginger and artichoke extract in 126 patients with functional dyspepsia, not diagnosed GERD. The reported improvements included nausea, fullness, pain and bloating, not heartburn specifically. Worth knowing, too: three of that trial's nine authors were affiliated with the company that supplied the extract, though the paper itself declares no conflict of interest. And we weren't able to obtain the review's full inclusion table, so we can't say with certainty what the second pooled study was, but the review itself never claims to have tested ginger alone, and we couldn't find a single trial of ginger by itself in people with GERD.

That doesn't make the research unimportant. It simply means we shouldn't use evidence from one digestive condition, or a multi-ingredient formula with industry ties, to make a stronger claim about ginger and reflux than the study actually supports.

Follow the evidence. Don't outrun it.

That's also why we built our supplement guide around whole-product evidence rather than assuming the research on one ingredient automatically applies to another formula.

What Tea Is Good for Acid Reflux?

Tea is another good example of why reflux advice isn't always as simple as it sounds.

In one study, researchers used three hours of ambulatory pH monitoring to compare regular coffee, tea and tap water in 16 volunteers. Regular coffee induced significantly more reflux. Tea and tap water did not significantly differ from one another.

Researchers then looked at caffeine. Decaffeinating coffee significantly reduced reflux. Decaffeinating tea didn't make a meaningful difference, and adding caffeine to plain water didn't reproduce coffee's effect. That suggests caffeine alone doesn't explain what's happening.

There is conflicting evidence. A smaller crossover study involving 12 subjects found that both coffee and tea lowered sphincter pressure, with tea producing significantly more reflux episodes than water. That study was published in a national medical journal, in Icelandic, with a much smaller sample than the pH-monitoring study. We'd weight the larger ambulatory pH data more heavily, but you deserve to know both studies exist.

So we shouldn't turn either study into a universal rule. But taken together, the research certainly doesn't support the idea that all tea is inherently bad for reflux.

What About Coffee and Acid Reflux?

Coffee may be one of the best examples of why we like to start with physiology instead of a trigger list.

Most people have heard that coffee causes reflux because caffeine relaxes the lower esophageal sphincter. But that's not consistently what researchers have observed.

A 1975 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine measured LES pressure and acid secretion after coffee and caffeine. Caffeine produced minimal change in sphincter pressure. Both regular and decaffeinated coffee actually increased LES pressure. Coffee tightened the lid, it didn't loosen it.

Coffee did, however, increase gastric acid secretion, and decaffeinated coffee produced nearly as much acid as regular coffee. So caffeine alone doesn't appear to explain coffee's relationship with reflux.

That's reflected in some clinical guidance as well. MedlinePlus advises people with GERD to avoid caffeine but also mentions avoiding decaffeinated coffee, because it can increase stomach acid, an instruction that only makes sense if the problem was never caffeine.

When researchers pooled 15 case-control studies, they found no statistically significant overall association between coffee consumption and GERD, although a subgroup of studies using endoscopic diagnosis did find an association. A Mendelian randomization study also found no clear causal relationship between coffee consumption and GERD, though caffeine itself showed a small suggestive signal. For scale, that same genetic study found body mass index carried an odds ratio of roughly 1.49 per standard deviation, and smoking carried 1.41. Next to those established risk factors, the coffee signal is small.

So should everyone with reflux stop drinking coffee? Not necessarily. If coffee consistently triggers your symptoms, that's worth paying attention to. If it doesn't, the evidence doesn't support assuming that every person with reflux needs to eliminate it.

That's one of the problems with universal reflux food lists. The same exposure can affect different people differently because the underlying physiology isn't always the same.

Is Green Tea Good for Acid Reflux?

Green tea has some interesting observational data.

In a Japanese health examination study involving 2,853 participants, daily green tea consumption was associated with GERD at an odds ratio of 1.44 and non-erosive reflux disease at 1.54. Both findings were statistically significant.

The researchers proposed that green tea's relationship with H. pylori and chronic atrophic gastritis might help preserve gastric acid-producing capacity. Better-preserved acid production, in someone whose sphincter isn't holding well, could mean more acid is available to reflux.

But this needs context. The study was cross-sectional, tea exposure was measured using a relatively simple yes-or-no question, and an association does not prove that green tea caused reflux. The size of the association was also relatively modest. In the same study, hiatal hernia had an odds ratio of 2.58. It is also worth noting that the NCCIH green tea resource does not mention reflux in either direction.

Interesting? Yes. Proof that green tea causes reflux? No.

If green tea consistently bothers you, reducing it is reasonable. But the evidence doesn't justify calling it a universal reflux trigger.

What About Peppermint Tea?

Peppermint is commonly found on lists of foods and beverages to avoid with reflux. NIDDK lists mint among foods commonly associated with GERD symptoms, while MedlinePlus specifically mentions peppermint and spearmint.

The usual explanation is that peppermint relaxes the lower esophageal sphincter. But newer research suggests the mechanism may be more complicated.

Researchers infused menthol directly into the esophagus of healthy volunteers and people with GERD and measured esophageal pressure. Menthol did not appreciably alter LES pressure or esophageal peristalsis. What it did do was cause significantly more discomfort in participants with GERD. An earlier study in patients with esophageal spasm found the same pattern: sphincter and contractile pressures were no different before and after peppermint oil.

That points toward another possibility: maybe peppermint isn't always creating more reflux. Maybe an already sensitized esophagus is reacting more strongly to menthol.

That's an important distinction. Reflux symptoms aren't determined solely by how much material enters the esophagus. Tissue irritation and visceral sensitivity can influence how strongly that reflux is felt. We explore that mechanism further in Inflammation: The Silent Driver That Makes Reflux Feel Worse.

One important clarification: peppermint tea and concentrated peppermint oil aren't identical exposures. Peppermint oil capsules are often enteric-coated specifically so the oil travels farther through the digestive tract before being released. If peppermint tea clearly aggravates your reflux, skipping it is reasonable.

Is Chamomile Tea Good for Acid Reflux?

Chamomile may be calming. It may be a pleasant caffeine-free evening drink. But there's currently no good evidence that chamomile treats acid reflux.

The NCCIH chamomile resource doesn't identify GERD, reflux or heartburn as an established indication, and notes that evidence for many proposed clinical uses remains insufficient. Chamomile can also cause allergic reactions in people sensitive to related plants such as ragweed, chrysanthemums, marigolds or daisies.

So enjoy chamomile if you like it. Just don't confuse soothing with treating the underlying physiology of reflux.

The same distinction applies to many other herbal teas. Licorice deserves a specific caution: NCCIH notes it's unclear whether licorice alone affects digestive symptoms, and regular licorice containing glycyrrhizin can raise blood pressure and disrupt electrolytes with sustained use. Slippery elm and marshmallow root are frequently described online as demulcent reflux remedies, but NIH's herbal reference doesn't have a dedicated page for either one, and we found no controlled trial of either specifically for reflux.

Does the Temperature of Tea Matter?

Possibly, but for a completely different reason.

Research has associated consuming beverages above approximately 65°C (149°F) with an increased risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. In a large UK study involving 454,796 adults, drinking four to six cups a day of hot-temperature beverages carried a hazard ratio of 1.97 for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, and very hot beverages carried a hazard ratio of 2.52 even at lower intakes.

This is important to separate from reflux. Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma is different from the esophageal adenocarcinoma associated with chronic reflux and Barrett's esophagus. These are two different disease pathways.

The takeaway is much simpler: you don't need to drink your tea scalding hot. Letting it cool for a few minutes is an easy precaution.

So What Should You Actually Drink for Acid Reflux?

There isn't a magic reflux tea.

If you enjoy a warm beverage, a caffeine-free herbal tea such as chamomile may be a reasonable option, provided it doesn't trigger your individual symptoms. Let it cool below scalding, and if you're drinking it in the evening, finish it a few hours before bed.

If coffee doesn't bother you, the population-level evidence doesn't give you a compelling reason to automatically eliminate it. If ginger helps you, there are plausible physiological reasons why. If it makes your symptoms worse, there are plausible reasons for that too. And if peppermint reliably aggravates your reflux, it's reasonable to avoid it.

But there's another mechanism worth understanding. If your goal is to clear acid from the esophagus, swallowing and saliva themselves can help. In one study, chewing gum reduced esophageal acid-clearance time from 6.9 minutes to 2.3 minutes in healthy volunteers after acid infusion. Another study found that chewing sugar-free gum for 30 minutes after a reflux-provoking meal reduced esophageal acid exposure.

So sometimes the important question isn't what's in the drink. It's what the digestive system is doing.

For a broader look at the evidence, How to Get Rid of Acid Reflux ranks common reflux strategies by evidence quality, while Does Milk Help Acid Reflux? looks at another beverage people frequently reach for.

The Better Question: Why Is Reflux Happening?

After looking at ginger, tea, coffee, peppermint and chamomile, there's a bigger takeaway.

We're asking an awful lot of a cup of tea.

A beverage might temporarily feel soothing. Something you drink may trigger symptoms. Ginger may influence gastric emptying. Coffee may affect acid secretion. Peppermint may interact with sensitized tissue. But none of that answers the most important question:

Why are stomach contents moving upward in the first place?

That's the question we start with at Regarding Your Gut. Healthy upper digestion depends on several coordinated functions. The lower esophageal sphincter helps keep stomach contents where they belong. Gastric motility helps move food out of the stomach efficiently. Acid balance supports normal digestion without making acid itself the enemy. And digestive tissue integrity and inflammatory balance can influence how the upper digestive tract responds when reflux occurs.

Instead of simply asking "how do I get rid of the acid?" we ask: "what physiological functions normally help keep stomach contents in the stomach?"

Where Re:flux Fits

That mechanism-first approach is what led Dr. Ken Brown to develop Re:flux.

Re:flux wasn't designed around the idea that stomach acid itself is the problem. It was formulated to support four interconnected areas of upper digestive function: lower esophageal sphincter function, gastric motility, digestive balance, and digestive tissue integrity.

Because the goal isn't simply to chase acid after it moves upward. It's to support the digestive functions that help keep stomach contents where they belong.

You can explore the physiology and reasoning behind the formula in The Acid Truth. And if you're trying to understand what may be contributing to your own digestive symptoms, take the quiz.

Understanding what's happening inside your body helps you ask better questions, have better conversations with your healthcare provider and make more informed decisions.

Start with why.

About Regarding Your Gut

Regarding Your Gut is a digestive health education and supplement company founded by Kenneth Brown, MD, a board-certified gastroenterologist with more than 20 years in practice.

We start with why.

Our approach begins with understanding the physiology behind digestive symptoms, then looking at ingredients and interventions that support the mechanisms involved. Our products include Atrantil for digestive support related to gas and bloating, Re:flux for upper digestive support, and Re:balance for microbiome support.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This article is educational and is not medical advice. Talk to your healthcare provider about your individual situation. Re:flux is not recommended for pregnant or nursing women.