While tea has been consumed in China and other parts of Asia since the latter part of the 6th century it was not introduced in European countries for more than 1,000 years. Pepys mentions having tasted it for the first time in 1660, but the novel beverage must have met with almost instant recognition for, less tnan 18 years later, it was in general use in every part of England.
As both cocoa and chocolate contain starch and fat in considerable quantities they are among the most nutritious of the stimulating table beverages. Both are obtained from a small evergreen tree, native to tropical coun tries, for while the cocoa of commerce is pre pared by grinding the seeds themselves, the commercial chocolate cakes contain the better parts of the berry, usually mixed with sugar and some distinctive flavoring. The prepara tion of the drinlc is a simple process, the cocoa or chocolate merely being dissolved in milk and boiling water.
Although by no means so popular as tea or coffee the drinkixig of mineral waters has be come so general during the past century that they must now be regarded as among the most important temperance beverages. Early in the 16th century a.ri attempt was made to produce artificial mineral waters, but it was not until the 18th century that chemistry had made suffi cient progress to enable the experimenters to prove the elementary compounds of the waters both as to quality and quantity. In fact, the first unqualified success in this line of investi gation was made by Dr. Frederick Adolphus Augustus Struve, a Dresden druggist, who celebrated his achievement by opening an arti ficial mineral water pavilion in that city, in 1820.
The alkoline and mineral waters which are so much in use to-day owe their distinctive diaracteristics to the preponderance of car bonate and bicarbonate of sodium as well as to the tarbonate of potassium, lithium, calcium and magnesium which they contain, all of which tend to make them useful aids to the physician in the treatment of disease. The Vichy of France, for example, or the Ems of Germany, are extensively used in the dietetic treatment, correcting disorders of the stomach and acting as allcalinizers of the blood, bile and urine. In cases of gout, gall stones, rheumatism, dyspepsia, constipation, etc., they have proved of invaluable service and have also been used successfully in the treatment of obesity. In many instances their value as medicinal agents is enhanced by the addition of carbon dioxide, while, in other cases, they are made more palatable and easy of digestion by.being served with milk. Among the natural mineral waters produced in this country are those of Saratoga, N. Y., Saint Louis, Mich., and Waukesha, Wm., all of which are well and favorably known to those who snake use of such beverages.
Another class of drinks, the popularity of which is beyond question, are those beverages which contain alcohol as an active principle: beer, ale, wine, cider and the many kinds of spirituous liquors that are now manufactured in almost every part of the world. In addi tion to the alcohol these beverages also contain such properties as tannin, sugar, carbon diox ide, or various acidulous substances, any or all of which exert an influence over the flavor of the liquid. As to alcohol itself it has so long
been a bone of contention that it would be folly to attempt to review a century-long contest In a single arttcle. Ontsinally used exclusively as a medicine, and admittedly a valuable agent in the treatment of certain diseases it is to be doubted if even the moderate use of such liquors as beverages is not productive of far more evil than good, while the effect of im moderate indulgence in such liquid stimulants is too well known to require further discussion. In spite of all the warnings of science, how ever, man continues to gratify his craving for alcoholic preparations. Even in countries where the ordinary beverages of commerce are unknown, savage taste has learned to delight in the flavor of fermented liquors, and this desire even the most barbaric people have had ingenuity enough to gratify.
Beer, or lager, as it is more generally known in this country, is by no means a modern inven tion and no drink has continued to maintain a more steadfast hold upon the taste of man since the earliest days of civilization. The Egyptians manufactured beer from barley many hundred years before the Christian Era. Archilochus, 700 }Lc., shows that the Greeks had learned the art of brewing, while we have such eminent authorities as Sophocles and 2Eschylus, Dio dorus and Pliny to prove that the Greeks and Romans both made beer and loved it. Like the Gauls, the Romans called it Cerevisia, from Ceres, the goddess of field fruits, and there is ample history to prove that the art of making this beverage was known to man fully as early as the art of making wine from the grape. Prior to the invasion by the Romans the Britons were drinkers of milk and water although they occa sionally drank mead, an intoxicating beverage made from honey. As Tacitus tells us that beer was the ordinary drink of the Romans, and beer and vinegar the favorite beverage of the soldiers of Julius Caesar, it is not difficult to imagine why, so soon after his invasion, the Britons be came a nation of beer-drinkers. Unlike the Romans, however, they employed wheat instead of barley in their malting. In Germany, too, beer was introduced at a very early date. Charlemagne loved it dearly and not only com pelled the best brewers in the land to become attaches of his court, but gave his personal at tention to the subject so conscientiously that he was able to tell them how to improve their brew. As early as 1482 the monasteries of that country began to make beer and, by the 16th century, that beverage had become one of the chief exports of the country. In fact, the Ger man brewer has always been recognized as one of the best beer makers of the world and it has only been within the past century that the suc cess of their Austrian rivals has had a tendency to somewhat eclipse their glory. Centuries ago beverages known as beer were made in Eng land by tapping such trees as the birch, maple, spruce and ash for their juices, or by resorting to the properties contained in ginger and other roots, a practice which not only still prevails in that country, but that was brought to America by the first colonists, who loved these humble, harmless drinks too well to leave their recipes in the motherland.