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10,000 BCE
The First Harvest of Grains
After the last ice age, the fertile crescent land was unuasually fertile and was the breeding ground for good crop. The paleolithic man started to harvest theses grains to make what they would soon discover was beer. This was the earliest known harvesting. -
10,000 BCE
Introduction of a Neolithic Era
With some of the grains being so tough known as the flint blade. Sharp and easy find/ make, it was the perfect solution. This was one of the very first tools used in what soon turned into farming. -
9000 BCE
The First True Establishments of Neolithic Lifestyle
Around this time, the harvesting of crops was starting to become more of an excepted idea. Staying more to a general area of settlement made it much easier to find food supply, and was even more so convenient to store it. The harvesting of grains to make beer encouraged more of a settled lifestyle. -
6000 BCE
Pottery Made to Store Beer
Pottery was first made to store wine, and that was its original purpose. However, even in the pottery it still did not keep very well. This encouraged even more harvesting of grains to make beer, as it was much easier to keep. -
5400 BCE
Wine Being Purposely Made
In the Zagros Mountains, modernly known as Armenia and Iran, was discovered evidence of wine being made. It wasn't more than some crushed grapes fermenting, however this was the first sign of wine purposely trying to be made. The fact that they were attempting to make wine in sizeable porportions with pottery, was a major break through. Not a lot of it had been done before. -
4000 BCE
First Pictogram Drawings
Pictograms were discovered correlating to beer being shared. Not only was this one of the first pictograms discovered but the two figures in the picture are depicted beer through separate to the same pottery jar. -
3150 BCE
King Scorpion I
One of Egypt's earliest rulers, King Scorpion I, was buried in his tomb with later discovery turned out to be 7 jars of wine. Pharaoh's had been buried with food before but not to that altitude. It was supposedly the kings drink of choice. It was expensively imported right before he died and was buried. -
2500 BCE
Domestication of Wine
Now that Neolithic lifestyles were well underway, the growing of certain crops and the breeding of certain animals was of no surprise. Wine was starting to spread more, and someone finally felt up to the task of domesticating the grape vine. And they were successful. Off the Mediterranean coast, on the Greek island Crete, was the first man grown grape vine. -
870 BCE
King Ashurnasirpal II
A king of Assryia, he indighted the new capital he made at Nimrud. Of course for such a monumental event, came after a monumental celebration. King Ashurnasirpal held one of feasts probably ever. The celebrations lasted ten days, and was attended by 69,574 people. Interestingly enough the kings choice of drink? Wine. -
785 BCE
Rationings
Discovered in Nimrud were cuneiform tablets with wine rationings on them. Although cuneiform was relatively new, it had never really been used for numbers or records or such. Their main purpose had been for story telling. Now it was rationed to one qa of wine per day. -
Jan 1, 780
Tea Overseas
The popularity of tea was rapidly growing. And with it went its prices. To keep up with the burden, The Tang Dynasty proposed a tax on tea. Almost a year later, it did happen. This was one if the few items that was ever taxed on first. -
Jan 1, 1191
Instructions Printed
The growing popularity of tea was becoming obvious, and the amount of different things you could do to prepare it was unreal. A Buddhist munk from Japan, Eisai, wrote a book with the most updated knowledge of growing, picking, preparing, and drinking tea -
Jan 1, 1300
Instructions Please
Distilled wine, or spirits, have many 'powers' to heal. In a school in France a professor made an instructions booklet on how to distill wine for these purposes. This is still one of the very early stages on printing and distributing text. -
Jan 1, 1386
Spirits to The Rescue
In a kingdom in Spain, Charles II had fallen ill with paralysis and fever. His doctors and servants thought that what would be best would be the medicine of distilled wine, or spirits. It unfortunately did not work, however this is one of the first events documented where alcohol is used as a remedy rather than a cause. -
Jan 1, 1430
Printed Text Takes a Leap
The printing press, developed in England by Johannes Gutenburg, drastically helped improve they way information got around. More things could now be mass produced for all of the world to see. In fact one of the first books printed ever was actually a book for the distillation of wine, or spirits. -
Jan 1, 1478
The First Book
Following the invention of the printing press came the first book printed, a book on distillation in Austria by Puff von Schrick. It became so popular that in the following years to come there were fourteen editions made -
Jan 1, 1496
To Much Home Experiment
Because there were all these books and papers on how to distill wine correctly on your own, that's exactly what people ended up doing. For personal gain and pleasure, it became an obsession to the public. So much to the point that in Germany, they had to put a ban on personal distillation unless you had a permit -
Jan 1, 1510
Coffee Escapes
As coffee started to become more popular, everyone wanted it for themselves. However Arabia was holding the monopoly to the coffee bean plant. They were very careful to not let any plants leave, and to sterilize the beans that did because they were drawing in quite a bit of money. However it somehow got out, and spread to Mecca and Cairo first. And it became an instant sensation. -
Jan 1, 1511
BAN On Coffee?
Coffee became such a sensation that it started to be frowned upon. It was a socially excepted drink, but politically not so much. It was viewed on as 'ambiguous' and in Mecca they tried to place a ban on it. They were unsuccessful however, for coffee was just to little, yet big, to be in their control. -
Jan 1, 1557
Trading Posts
Portugal wanted to trade with China, but more importantly, wanted to get their tea. China agreed to give them a trading post in return for worship and tribute to their emperor. And so it happened in 1557 Portugal finally got their hands on some tea. It was a historic event for bartering and debate between two nations. Wasn't the first time, and definitely won't be the last. -
Grand Opening
Coffee was becoming so popular that it became the new fad. Coffee houses were first to appear in Britain, and then they spread like wildfire. Coffeehouses were viewed as respectable, intellectual, and over all 'the place to be' -
Cromwells Memory
During Oliver Cromwell's rule is when coffeehouses really got under way. Following the death of Cromwell, there was debate of restoring the monarchy and if it was a good idea or not. None of these debates had to do with Cromwell directly, however all of these conversations and debates took place in the coffeehouses he helped grow during the time of his rule -
The Trend
Tea had been a sociable drink, but not a true fashion trend up until 1662, when Charles II got married to the daughter of King John IV of Portugal. Because of the marriage, there were Portugal trading posts were set up in Bombay and Tangier. Cathering, the new wife to Charles II, was a religious tea drinker -
Flames Destroy
There were probably more coffeehouses in England than anywhere else. There was most likely one on every street. There was however an unfortunate incident. Its called the great fire of London, where, you guessed it, a fire happened. It burnt down more than half of the coffeehouses in England. They all bounced right back though. Coffee was in such high demand even more sprung back up in their places -
Women Get a Cup
Earlier on, it was frowned upon that women were 'out and about'. In fact many coffeehouses were men-only establishments. Well in London of 1717 Thomas Twinning resolved all of those problems, and opened up a coffeehouse just for women. Women could buy tea to go all ready and or by dried tea leaves to do it at home. -
Introduction to Carbonation
In 1805 Benjamin Silliman, a chemistry teacher at Yale, went over to England to pick up some books for his new chemistry curriculum. But that's not all he brought home. With him he brought soda water, a carbonated fizzy drink made by Schweppe in London. America was impressed and the soda water population grew. -
A New Demand
Silliman was overwhelmed by the demand he now had for this new soda water. He decided to take it into his own hands and replicate and mass produce the new product. Similar to what they had been doing in London. In 1807, in New Haven, Connecticut, Silliman started to sell the fizzy drink. -
Coca-Cola Addiction
People went crazy for the new sweet drink. Pemberton couldn't quite figure out why, when he finally realized it must have been the one ingredient, coca. The plant in itself is known for its stimulating properties in South America. In 1855 cocaine was extracted from the coca plant in hopes to curing opium addicts. What the doctors didn't know was that it was just as dangerous, and addictive. -
Coke; Invented or Discovered?
A Pharmacist in Georgia by the name of John Pemberton, invented Coca-Cola in his lab one day. While playing around in his lab one day with some ingredients, (attempting to resolve headaches) he created a sweet, brown, fizzy drink that we all came to know as Coca-Cola. -
Coca-Cola The Medicine
The Coca-Cola company really took off, it was a major hit in America. For the company to become even more successful, the added in their advirtisements that Coca-Cola helped with headaches and other head cold symptoms. While it was somewhat false advertisement, it did work, and Coca-Cola saw some spikes in sales shortly after that was put out to the public. This might have been one of the first times that major corporation companies swayed you with advirtisements to buy their drink.
