Tea
Beverages make great metaphors. Or, at the very least, beverages inspire writers to metaphor. This is especially true when considering how beverages has played into the march of time and the course of the history. For much of civilization, the most prevalent non-alcoholic beverage was tea and is popularity and omnipresence meant the raw material of its source shaped the course of civilization:
“The story of tea is the story of imperialism, industrialization, and world domination, one cup at a time.”
Ugh…Wine People
Ever get fed up with those “wine people” who seem capable of lecturing for an infinite amount of time on the subject of what is essentially just grape juice? Anyone who finds wine connoisseurs intolerable is advised to avoid ancient Greece as a destination for time travel. Turns out that just about every Greek of the ancient civilization placed a premium of judgment upon every other aspect of character based upon their choice of wine. No less a spokesman for this period than the great playwright Aeschylus had time to wax philosophical on grapes crushed by dirty feet before that eagle dropped a turtle on his head. Or, then again, maybe the waxing came afterward:
“Bronze is the mirror of the outward form; wine is the mirror of the mind.”
The Irony of Egyptian Beer
The history of beer traces well back into the history of Egypt. For the most part, however, Egyptian beer was sort of the light beer of its day as getting drunk was very much frowned upon. Ancient scrolls tell the story of this irony through metaphor:
“Beer, it scareth men from thee, it sendeth thy soul to perdition. Thou art like a broken steering-oar in a ship, that is obedient on neither side.”
Enjoy Capitalism
The ultimate metaphor in the book is reserved for the contribution of the 20th century to the history of beverages. The new kid on the block took only decades to play with the big boys of beer, wine, tea and coffee and by the end of the century, had completely overtaken them as the symbol of wealth, qualify of life and political freedom. The king of the world is not just a type of beverage, but one brand in particular: Coca-Cola.
“Fizzy mass-market stuff—ie, capitalism—is good for you.”
An Enlightening Conclusion
Soft drinks may be the symbol of globalization, but coffee has that beat by a mile: it is the beverage of reason. More specifically, the rise of coffee as the primary non-alcoholic rival to tea coincided with a new focus on intellectual development and scientific experimentation demanding the sort of energy which could not be gained from tea and the sort of focus which could only be destroyed by beer or wine:
“Coffee was the great soberer, the drink of clear-headedness, the epitome of modernity and progress—the ideal beverage, in short, for the Age of Reason.”
