The earliest humans had no cups or ways to store water, so, by necessity, they frequented water holes or other source of standing or running water. It is presumed that the earliest humans channeled run off, drank melted snow and consumed rainfall collected from tree crotches or natural depressions.
The last 11 000 years of the evolutionary history, the predominant beverages consumed were water and breast milk. Breastfeeding terminates in childhood, so, for the vast majority of human history, adults consumed predominantly water which provided no calories from beverages.
Simple observations on the timing and quality of rainfall and the probability of water at any specific geographical location would have served ancient humans well. Eventually through observation and trial and error, early humans learned to predict sources of water even on subsurface deposits beneath the sands of dry stream beds and also learned which fruits and succulents in arid lands offered refreshing lifesaving fluids to drink.
8,000-10,000 years ago, someone discovered that when fruit (or grain, milk or rice) was fermented, the results tasted good, made one happy – or both. The Bible mentions wine consumption in both the Old and the New Testaments. Archaeologists say the Chinese were making wine from mixed fermented beverage made from rice, beeswax-honey, and either wild grapes or hawthorn berries.
The Sumerians (a generic name for the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia) are said to have discovered the beer fermentation process quite by chance. They must have liked it.
During Han dynasty times in ancient China, already had a wide range in beverage choices that had rapidly become available and how they closely associated with medicine and the healing process.
The ancient Chinese medical system defined five organs (heart, liver, lung, kidney and spleen) and integrated factors of hot-cold, wet dry, male-female, set within complex integration of Yang, Neutrality and Yin.
Alcoholic beverage (except beer) and coffee are classified as Yang or hot/heating, whereas fruit juice, milk tea, and un-boiled water are classified as Yin or cold/cooling. Furthermore, Chinese Buddhist monks followed strict dietary codes that limited their eating time to the morning hours, and the foods/beverage forbidden to them included: fermented items, milk, cream, fish and meat.
The development of pasteurization and other technologies greatly increased the safety of milk also other types of drinks and allowed it to be marketed over a wider area. Before pasteurization milk consumption could transmit diseases, including cholera, polio, anthrax, scarlet fever, bovine tuberculosis and botulism.
Technological innovation helped to reduce the danger of transmission of infection by beverages especially milk. Condensed and heat-treated milk, both marketed by the 1880s, reduced the dangers of milk (20,21) and prolonged its storage time on the shelf.
Early history of beverage
