Preview

A History of the World in 6 Glasses Questions/Answers

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
479 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A History of the World in 6 Glasses Questions/Answers
Summer Reading Questions
A History of the World in 6 Glasses

1. Out of the six beverages, tea shows the strongest interplay of different civilizations. It is stated in that book that, “According to Chinese tradition, the first cup of tea was brewed by the emperor Shen Nung”(177). Tea was first popular in China, while it was the greatest empire in the world at the time. With this, China traded with many countries such as India, Japan, and Korea. It was inevitable that tea would spread to other cultures, the next being the Dutch.
Tea was spread with Dutch doctors stating that tea was medical and could help people who were ill. On top of this, the European culture contributed an addition to the tea. They began drinking tea with milk. This became wildly popular there. “From the top of British society to the bottom, everyone was drinking tea”(196). This shows how accessible tea was to any individual of any class. Later on, the British brought their culture along with tea to America. 2. One continuity that occurred throughout the book was that each beverage is made from food or plant. For example, gruel is turned into beer when, “[it] was left sitting around for a couple of days underwent a mysterious transformation...the air fermented the sugar in the gruel into alcohol”(14-15). This exists because aside from water, every beverage is food or plant based, even in modern day. There are limitless possibilities of creations of drinks.
Another continuity is that a few of the beverages are safer to drink than water. A reason why is because some are boiled. Boiling creates such extreme heat for many bacteria to survive in. For instance, tea is served hot because it is boiled. In addition, there are leaves in tea called “Camellia sinensis” (177) that kill some types of bacteria. 3. A practice that changed over time was the different beverages used for currency. For example,
“The workers who built the pyramids were paid

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Beer influenced the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural based societies because it gave people a keen interest in grain storage. Beer was discovered as gruel, a mixture of water and grain, that was heated. It stimulated a dopaminergic release, causing the people that experienced the flavor to yearn for that rewarding sensation more. Standage noted that people could store a pound of grain a year, which caused the transition away from the savage – minded lifestyle even more appealing (13). Beer is a drink used to relax and celebrate, and seeing that the world functions through the ability to communicate, beer was extremely valuable to the people of the time period. In addition, it is possible that a trade-off of some sort was made possible, as some would convert to beer-making and exchange their craft for meat and berries. In the book, it was said that beer “was truly the defining drink of those first great civilizations,” and these various new abilities brought into play through beer makes this understandable (30). All of these positive and attractive new possibilities are ways that beer influenced the switch from the traditional hunt – and – gather mentality to a more society – oriented lifestyle with agriculture.…

    • 1918 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    How did beer lead to the development of cities in Mesopotamia and Egypt? Grains grew widespread in the Fertile Crescent (The crescent shaped area which had an ideal climate and soil for growing plants and raising livestock, it stretches from Egypt, up the Mediterranean coast to Turkey, and then down again to the border between Iraq and Iran.) causing the unintentional discovery of beer. The Fertile Crescent’s extremely rich soil was suitable for the growth of cereal grains after the last ice age, which occurred around 10,000 BCE. Hunter-gatherers were drawn to the cereal grains and, the ability to keep the grains for long periods of time stimulated them to stay. If they hunter-gatherers could thrive of off the wild grain if they were willing to stay near it and harvest at its peak. After the hunter-gatherers had spent so much time collecting the grain they would have been reluctant to leave the grain that they had collected nor could they travel with it. For this reason hunter-gatherers began to settle on the land. These settlers soon found that the grain could be stockpiled for long periods of time without spoiling. The technology of these settlers was still in development so storage spaces were not usually watertight, and when the water got into the stockpile of the collected grains they started to sprout and acquired a sweet taste. Thus becoming malted grains. When gruel, which is made of boiled malted grains, was left to sit for a couple of days it undertakes an interesting transformation. It becomes a pleasantly intoxicating and slightly bubbly liquid, as the yeasts from the gruel turn it to alcohol. The cereal grains used to make beer was often used as an eatable currency, because everyone needed it. People traded and sold it, causing the development and expansion of cities.…

    • 2569 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    1. The “Land between 2 rivers” is the Tigris and Euphrates rivers located in Mesopotamia (in the Fertile Crescent). “The World’s first cities arose in Mesopotamia, ‘the land between the streams,’ the name given to the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers… (24, Standage)”, which meant that around this area most of the people were hardworking. The problem about these two rivers though is that they had unexpected flooding and there was little rain. This is why at the time, goods, instead of being offerings to gods were, “compulsory taxes that were consumed by the temple bureaucracy or traded for other goods and services (40, Standage).” This only arose though because of the unpredictable weather and nature of the Mesopotamian environment.…

    • 1021 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage is about six drinks (beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and coca-cola) and how they have affected the world in the past and the present. All of these drinks were invented in different eras, and the inventions of these drinks were affected by what had occurred in the time period.…

    • 2482 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After the middle ages, Europe was awakened by the discovery of ancient knowledge, safeguarded by Arab scholars. The Age of Exploration/Colonial Period was improved by the knowledge of distillation, which made new drinks. The novel describes how these condensed forms of alcohol (Brandy, Rum etc.)…

    • 913 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Beer might have/had influenced the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural-based societies. One way beer could have done this was that after the discovery of beer, the demand for beer began to increase. With increase demand for beer, farming would increase taking away time to hunt and gather for food. With less hunting and gathering, farmers eventually settled down in small areas around the Fertile Crescent to create beer.…

    • 2694 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Beer: Beer was not invented, it was discovered. Exactly when the first beer was brewed is unknown but there was almost certainly no beer before 10,000 BCE. The rise of beer was closely associated with the domestication of the cereal grains rom which it is made and the adoption of farming. Beer originated in the Fertile Crescent in Egypt and Mesopotamia. To beer drinkers in the Neolithic period, beer’s ability to intoxicate and induce a state of altered consciousness seemed magical. This caused them to believe beer was a gift from the Gods. Since it was a gift from the gods, it was presented as a religious offering in religious ceremonies, agricultural fertility rites, and in funerals by the Sumerians and Egyptians. One turning point in history is that beer might have played a role in the adoption of agriculture, according to some anthropologists.…

    • 2708 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The author wants to show that beverages had a great impact on history. He wants to tell his…

    • 1445 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    History: Questions

    • 300 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Match the descriptions in Column I with the terms in Column II. Write the letter of the…

    • 300 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Beer started out as gruel, and as the gruel fermented it turned into beer. Now it was not the first form of alcohol, but it was an important kind of alcohol. Beer was made from cereal crops, which were very abundant, and because it was so abundant it could be made whenever it was needed. They then found an even easier way to make beer by using beer-bread. Beer bread is basically everything needed to make beer in a loaf, making it convenient to store the raw beer materials. Beer started as just a social drink but then blossomed into a “hallmark of civilization”, as seen by the Mesopotamians. Grain was the basis of the national diet, it was basically edible money. Beer was something that distinguished the Mesopotamians from savages, beer made them completely human. Beer was associated with a settled and orderly lifestyle, not hunters and gatherers in prehistoric times. Beer defined them as the first great civilizations. Beer then became a way of payment and currency. Officials and people in the work force were paid in silas of beer as part of their ration. And because they were using beer and not actual money they were more prosperous, being able to use money for development. No matter what age you were, you drank beer. It was a staple for their life.…

    • 2332 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    3.2 world history

    • 684 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Imagine you have just completed a trip through the early kingdoms and city-states of East, Central, and South Africa. Your family and friends ask you about the trip. Your task is to give them an oral history of your experience. You may choose to write your account, record it, or make a video. Remember, your family and friends will share your story and pass it on to future generations, like oral historians in Africa. Make it fascinating! No one wants to hear a boring story.…

    • 684 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    1. From which advanced civilization/culture did Europeans get the “science” of how to make spirits?…

    • 2847 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    4-The picture of a leader with a group of followers comes to mind. Their god is similar to the Mesopotamian’s gods because they’re worshiped and have power over the people. They differ because the god of the Israelites wants what is best for the people while the Mesopotamian’s gods wanted what was best for them.…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    History Questions

    • 1292 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Troppau Memorandum, which was signed by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, called upon the signatories to aid one another in:…

    • 1292 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Classification of Tea

    • 3254 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Black tea has a deep history, even though we have been familiar with it in these days. The history can’t be described just by which the development of tea producing method, but also by which has entwined the nations with each cultural, political, and religious backbone. In history, tea culture was developed in China. The ancient Chinese people drank teas as a miraculous medicine to be perpetual youth and longevity. Even after teas had been exported into Europe by the Dutch East India Company since 17th century, it was exorbitantly high-priced; therefore, black tea was luxury item only the nobility was able to taste it. However, there were three Tomas, who contributed to make black tea popular throughout the world: Garaway, Twining, and Lipton. We can now enjoy black tea with several ways in any situations. You may drink iced lemon tea on the hammock in Hawaii. You may drink a cup of Assam teas with honey or Okinawa brown cane sugar and have a piece of toast at breakfast. However, the teas might not be used in the proper way. In order to enjoy black tea, we need to recognize it accurately. Black tea can be classified into the types of tea plant, the seasons, the regions, the grading, and the method of brewing.…

    • 3254 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Good Essays