Beginning of Summer 立夏

The Beginning of Summe, Lixia立夏 in Chinese, is one of the 24 solar terms in China, bringing abundant rain and lead directly to the harvest. Thus an agricultural adage is that "no rain, no rice" and "no rain, we will hang up the hoe." In imperial China the emperors would perform a special rite to greet summer on that day. As the hot weather would cause people to lose weight and become exhausted it became the custom to weigh and drink tea as this was considered a guard against the torrid weather.