History and Origins of Your Favorite Beverage

Beer

Beer was the first alcoholic beverage known to civilization: however, who drank the first beer is unknown. Indeed, the first product humans made from grain and water before learning to make bread was beer. The drink has been a well-established part of human culture for millennia. For example, 4,000 years ago in Babylon, it was an accepted practice that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead or beer he could drink.

Champagne

Most countries restrict the use of the term Champagne to only those sparkling wines produced in the Champagne region of France. That part of the country has an interesting history:

"As far back as the times of the Emperor Charlemagne, in the ninth century, Champagne was one of the great regions of Europe, a rich agricultural area that was famous for its fairs. Today, thanks to a type of sparkling wine to which the region has given its name, the word Champagne is known worldwide — even if many of those who know the drink do not know exactly where it comes from.​"

Coffee

Culturally, coffee is a major part of Ethiopian and Yemenite history. This significance dates back as many as 14 centuries, which is when coffee was thought to have been discovered in Yemen (or Ethiopia, depending on who you ask). Whether coffee was first used in Ethiopia or Yemen is a topic of debate and each country has its own myths, legends, and facts about the popular beverage.

Kool-Aid

Edwin Perkins was always fascinated by chemistry and enjoyed inventing things. When his family moved to southwest Nebraska at the turn of the twentieth century, young Perkins experimented with homemade concoctions in his mother’s kitchen and created the drink that eventually became Kool-Aid. The forerunner to Kool-Aid was Fruit Smack, which was sold via mail order in the 1920s. Perkins renamed the drink Kool-Ade and then Kool-Aid in 1927.

Milk

Milk-producing mammals were an important part of early agriculture in the world. Goats were among human's earliest domesticated animals, first adapted in western Asia from wild forms about 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. Cattle were domesticated in the eastern Sahara by no later than 9,000 years ago. Historians think that at least one primary reason for this process was to make a source of meat easier to get than by hunting. Using cows for milk was a by-product of the domestication process.

Soft Drinks

The first marketed soft drinks (non-carbonated) appeared in the seventieth century. They were made from water and lemon juice sweetened with honey. In 1676, the Compagnie de Limonadiers of Paris was granted a monopoly for the sale of lemonade soft drinks. Vendors would carry tanks of lemonade on their backs and dispensed cups of the soft drink to thirsty Parisians.

Tea

The most popular beverage in the world, tea was first drunk under the Chinese Emperor Shen-Nung around 2737 B.C. An unknown Chinese inventor created the tea shredder, a small device that shredded tea leaves in preparation for drinking. The tea shredder used a sharp wheel in the center of a ceramic or wooden pot that would slice the leaves into thin strips.