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Text | Qing Yufei
Edit | Qing Yufei
Preface
When you think of ancient beverages, what is the first thing that comes to mind? is it a tea that is thousands of years old, or is it a wine with a fragrant flavor?
But in any case, I don't think there is such a thing as "coke", right?
But the fact is that the coke that can be drunk today has been available since ancient times, what is going on?
Song Dynasty's "Fat House Happy Water"
With the improvement of material life, there are more and more types of drinks on the supermarket shelves, which has a great tendency to make people "picky".
Many people think that drinks and everything are only available now, but in fact, there are far more types of drinks in ancient times than we think, and there are even some that can be compared to Coke.
In fact, the people of the Song Dynasty who were "rich" and understood "life" could also enjoy such benefits of modern people.
Looking through ancient books, we learned that in ancient times, there were also juices and "cola", and their types and flavors were not inferior to today's.
At that time, the drink was not called a drink, but had a more elegant name - pulp.
In ancient times, most beverages were derived from natural ingredients, and special attention was paid to health needs in addition to taste.
There are no additives in the pulp like the current beverage, and the common raw materials are generally black plum, peach, grape, sugarcane and so on.
For example, the sour plum soup, a well-received thirst-quenching drink, is made from black plums, rock sugar and medicinal herbs.
Not only does it have a delicious flavor, but it also has high medical value.
It can strengthen the spleen and stomach, calm the liver fire, and relieve oiliness, which is a very good traditional Chinese medicine.
At first, the sour plum soup was specially made for the emperor by the imperial dining room, and gradually entered the folk after that, becoming a favorite drink of every household, and has been passed down to this day.
In addition to sour plum soup, there are many other drinks that are loved by the public.
Walking down the streets of the Ming Dynasty, you may be startled by the dazzling number of drink shops in front of you.
Not only are these drinks hot, but even more surprisingly, there are cold drinks that are refreshing and refreshing.
In the middle of summer, the streets of the Song Dynasty would be filled with cold drink stalls, and the variety of them was even more overwhelming, no less than today.
Snow bubble bean water, ginger honey water, papaya juice, cold water lychee paste, snow bubble spleen drink, snow bubble plum blossom wine, rich family summer medicine ice water, perilla drink.
These drinks are so comprehensive that they can be difficult to choose.
Compared with today's ice cola, it is even more than that, and it is the "happy little sweet water" of people at that time.
At that time, not only the common people liked to drink drinks, but also the literati and artists loved them.
Legend has it that Su Shi, a great writer at that time, especially liked to drink a drink called Mai Mendong drink.
When he heard that his good friend Mi Fu was going to visit him, because he was worried that his friend was on a hard journey, he even made a bottle of Mai Men Dong drink for him, and gave him a poem:
A pillow of breeze is worth 10,000 dollars, and no one is willing to buy a north window to sleep on. Happy to warm the stomach door winter drink, knowing that it is Dongpo hand frying.
My friend was moved when he got it, and a drink also contained touching truth.
Li Qingzhao, a famous female lyricist in the Song Dynasty, also often drank a drink called cardamom cooked water.
She once wrote:
Xiao Xiao Xiao's temples are sick, lying on the window screen on the waning moon, and the cardamom is fried in water, and there is no tea.
It can be seen that she loves cooked water, not only that, but the categories that these literati and artists like will also be publicized by people, becoming the earliest "goods".
A refreshing drink in the Ming and Qing dynasties
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the beverage industry was in full bloom.
At that time, there were many types of cold drinks to choose from, no less than today's Internet celebrity milk tea shops.
Whether they are literati, royal children, or Taoist Buddhist monks, they all love drinks very much, even to the point of fanaticism.
When it comes to "drinking" in ancient times, the first thing is naturally tea.
Wang Anshi recorded in the "Tea Law": "Fu tea is for civil use, which is equal to rice salt, and it cannot be used without a day." It can be seen that tea has been very important in China from ancient times to the present.
The ancients often treated people with courtesy, honored people with tea, and expressed respect and appreciation for others.
Tea is also an important dealer on the Silk Road, and it is one of China's cultural symbols abroad.
Tea culture has a long history, and tea drinks have gradually developed, moving towards a diversified and industrialized development path.
In the Qing Dynasty, there was officially a brand of herbal tea "Wanglaoji".
It is inspired by the tea soup of the Song Dynasty, which is actually a health drink made from tea and other plants.
It can help the people to eat when they are feasting, and it is a flavored drink that the people like to see.
However, because of its unique flavor, it has become a casual drink that is higher than tea out of tea, and it is also a very popular long-established tea drink today.
When it comes to flavored tea, flower and fruit tea is also a very popular category.
The Qing people's "Continuation of the Book of Tea" quoted from the "Shandong Tongzhi" also described the situation that the people of Mengshan in Shandong made tea with flowers, and even used it as tribute:
"There are flowers such as tea on the top of Mengshan Stone in Fei County, Gunzhou Prefecture, and the local people take it to make it, and its taste and fragrance are very different from other teas. The exotic taste of tribute tea is also. ”
Not only that, the second chapter of the famous work "The History of Confucianism" also mentions that the monk of Guanyin Nunnery "took a lead pot, pinched a handful of bitter tea leaves, poured it full of water, burned it hot on the fire, and handed it to everyone to eat".
It can be seen that from south to north, there are not a few people who replace tea with the flowers and leaves of other plants.
To this day, flower and fruit tea is still one of the popular drinks of the general public, and has become the natural tea drink that people want to take a sip of in the summer heat.
In addition to the tea drinks mentioned above, China had frequent diplomacy with foreign countries in the early Qing Dynasty, and many imported products also flowed into the market and appeared in the eyes of the people.
One of the most popular drinks is a soda made in the Netherlands, but because people don't know foreign languages, it's called Dutch water.
But in fact, according to the continuous research and comparison of scholars, it was found that its real body was actually an early soda.
Soda was introduced to China and soon became a high-end drink on the banquet tables of dignitaries, and it quickly took root in China.
In 1906, two soda factories were established on the land of China, which shows the public's love for soda.
In ancient times, everyone could drink a variety of beverages such as tea, soft drinks, and fruit and vegetable juices.
After drinking and eating, people drink tea to relieve greasy, drink juice to relieve heat, and can also drink wine to help fun, so uneasy.
It can be seen that the drinks that ancient people could choose were not as few as we imagined.
Modern people love to drink Coke because they like the pleasure that comes after drinking Coke.
Similar to cola, ancient drinks with many flavors can also do this, and they have become the "cola" of the ancients.