Beverages and the Emergence of Tropical Nations

The beverages that civilized man consumes are of two kinds: alcoholic and nonalcoholic. Both have a social function; the nonalcoholic beverages are stimulants, whereas the alcoholic ones (contrary to much popular belief) are depressants. The stimulating effects of nonalcoholic beverages come from the alkaloids that they contain and which are extracted from the source materials, along with their flavors, by hot water. These alkaloids either are caffeine or are closely related to that substance. The most highly favored alkaloidcontaining beverage materials are tea, coffee, cocoa (or chocolate) and cola, and this is also the order of their consumption in the world today. Each one is a product of the tropics or the near-tropics.

Aesthetics · Art · Biology · Caffeine · Consumption (sociology) · Geography · Product (mathematics) · Traditional medicine · Tropics · Chemistry · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Ecology · Food Science · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Internal Medicine · Mathematics · Medicine · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies