A History of the World in 6 Glasses

A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I didn't finish this book. We went to the library Sunday and I decided just to go ahead and return it.

In short:
Beer - Mesopotamia, liquid bread, drink of the people
Wine - Greeks, symposia, democracy
Sprits - Colonialism, Slave Trade, Revolution
Coffee - Age of reason, academic discourse, people aren't drunk all the time
Tea - British Empire
Coke - America

The key point i took away is that what every drink has in common is an alternative to water which could be contaminated. all these drinks involve boiling water before people realized that the boiling was the part that was important.

This should be History of Western Civilization in 6 glasses. I Skimmed through Tea, and looked at Coke. It was at Tea that I completely lost interest. Coffee got a very brief chapter that started in Yemen but quickly went west. Then at the beginning of the Tea chapter, the author says China was an older, more advanced civilazation than any other they came in contact with, talks breifly about the Japanese Tea Ceremony and then proceeds to talk about how the west set up the Tea trade with china.

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