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Very interesting read. Assuming I descended from these people, I wonder if I could build up such a tolerance, because it sure doesn't seem that way on the rare
by zxcvvcxz 10y ago
Very interesting read. Assuming I descended from these people, I wonder if I could build up such a tolerance, because it sure doesn't seem that way on the rare occassions I do drink.
Does anyone have links to a similar history of coffee? When and how it originated, effects it had on the people, etc.
- clock_tower 10y agoFernand Braudel has some pretty interesting material about coffee in passing, in The Structures of Everyday Life. One thing he discusses is how alcohol, coffee, and tobacco all substituted for each other to an extent: where coffee consumption spread in France, for example, wine consumption fell.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoIf I had to hazard a guess, I would say that all three were primarily social activities - you'd go and meet your friends for a drink at the bar, or some coffee at the coffeeshop, or to smoke cigars at a lounge. If your friends are all drinking coffee, you're likely going to start seeking a caffeine buzz rather than an alcohol one.
- clock_tower 10y agoThat sounds about right. To judge by The Structures of Everyday Life (my source for talking about all this), even "drinking to get drunk" was something done socially. Taverns were the ruin of the peasantry when they spread into the French countryside; there were enormous taverns just outside the walls of Paris, where the whole city gathered to drink too much wine and dodge the city's heavy taxes on it; and English society got blitzed on gin in the 18th century (a drinking epidemic even by early-modern standards), but specifically on gin sold by the glass and drunk on the spot, in the company of other patrons.
- benbreen 10y agoBrian Cowan's The Social Life of Coffee [1] is the best book on the history of coffee that I know of. Fascinating story, in part because coffee's history with humans is far more brief than that of alcohol or opium. There's basically an order of magnitude difference between the former and the latter (1k years of consumption vs 10k). I also agree with the Braudel recommendation. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Social-Life-Coffee-Emergence-Coffeehouse/dp/0300171226 https://www.amazon.com/Social-Life-Coffee-Emergence-Coffeeho...
- ctdonath 10y agoA History of the World in Six Glasses https://smile.amazon.com/History-World-6-Glasses/dp/0802715524/ref=carldonath https://smile.amazon.com/History-World-6-Glasses/dp/08027155...