Did ancient Chinese drink boiled water? The answer is surprising

In our daily lives, drinking boiled water has become a default habit. Even if some places have started to set up "direct drinking water", it is often still regarded as "raw water" and difficult to be widely accepted. This practice is also reasonable: after the water is boiled, parasite eggs and bacteria are almost completely eliminated; some minerals are precipitated in the form of "scale", which reduces the hardness of the water and reduces the risk of urinary stones. All of these are beneficial to human health.

So, when did Chinese people develop the habit of drinking boiled water? Did people in ancient times also drink boiled water? The answer is a bit complicated: they did, but not very often.

Ancient people also boiled water

In Chinese culture, "tea" is an important and unique carrier that has been passed down from ancient times to today. When it comes to tea, water is naturally indispensable: whether it is decocting tea, boiling tea, making tea or brewing tea, it is ultimately inseparable from the step of boiling water. From this point alone, the ancients would undoubtedly boil water frequently. In addition, the ancients would make various summer drinks, collectively referred to as "cooked water", such as the "white cardamom cooked water" recommended by Li Qingzhao, which is to soak cardamom in boiled and cooled water; similar ones include "perilla cooked water" and "agarwood cooked water", which are also mentioned in the TV series "Dream of Hualu". And these "cooked waters" are made with boiled and cooled water, which is different from "raw water".

Image source: Pixabay

In fact, as early as the Stone Age, our ancestors probably had the habit of boiling water. For example, the white pottery gu (guī) belonging to the Dawenkou culture, with its hollow belly, thin neck, and long beak, is most likely a utensil used to boil water and warm wine. In later times, various jiao (diào) and teapots became more common, as evidenced by a large number of cultural relics. Therefore, it is still credible to say that the ancient Chinese have always known and been accustomed to drinking boiled water.

Don't boil water often

However, the other side of the story is that in ancient China, the practice of boiling water was not as common as it is today. The reasons are nothing more than two: First, due to the development level of science and technology, the hygiene awareness of the ancients was still very weak. There was no consensus on the significance of "boiling water, letting it cool before drinking". Especially in years of famine and war, when people could not even get enough food, why would they talk about boiling water? Of course, this phenomenon is not a good thing, especially for the spread of digestive tract diseases. The more important reason is that boiling water is troublesome and expensive.

To boil water, of course, you need fire, which consumes fuel. However, before modern times, with the massive destruction of vegetation and the growth of population, fuel supply was in a state of tension for a long time, especially in cities in winter.

For example, in the Ming Dynasty court, there were "four departments and eight bureaus", among which the agency specializing in managing firewood and charcoal was called "Xi Xin Si": From the name, we can see that even if you are the emperor, you have to save fuel. And for ordinary people, fuel is an expense that cannot be ignored. To this end, the ancients also came up with many ways. Some people believe that the cooking method of Chinese dishes has gradually transitioned from stewing in a large cauldron and roasting over an open fire in ancient times to baking (dry foods such as pancakes and fried rice can be made in large quantities by lighting a fire once, enough for several days), quick frying, pickling, etc., and saving fuel is an important factor.

Image source: Pixabay

In order to further save fuel, the ancients even used to eat two meals a day. The first meal was called "morning meal", also known as "饔" (yōng); the second meal was called "feeding meal", also known as "飧" (sūn). The second meal usually did not involve cooking, but only eating the leftover cold rice and cold dishes from the first meal.

For ordinary people in ancient times, eating cold meals and leftovers was a very normal and helpless thing, because fuel was too expensive. Such precious fuel needed to be used sparingly for cooking, and using it to boil water was perhaps almost a luxury.

At the same time, before modern times, there was another embarrassing thing about boiling water: once it was boiled, it could not be kept warm and it cooled down too quickly.

This is because the vacuum flask with a heat-insulating liner was first introduced in 1892; by the time it was introduced to China, it was already the end of the Qing Dynasty. Before that, to keep boiling water warm, the only way was to make a crude insulation box (commonly known as a "teapot nest") made of materials such as straw and cotton wool, which could not keep the heat for long. When you want to drink hot water again, you have to reheat it, which consumes fuel again. Ordinary people are of course even less willing to boil water.

The world has changed

At that time, thermos bottles were expensive. It was mentioned in "Three or Five More Bushels" that ordinary people could not afford them. It was not until the founding of New China, with the development of the national economy, especially the improvement of the industrial system, that the price of thermos bottles fell and became popular, providing a material basis for "boiling water and drinking boiled water".

But it was the Patriotic Health Campaign that truly changed people's habits and made boiling water a widespread practice.

Between 1949 and 1952, the whole country vigorously launched the Patriotic Health Campaign. There is another important background here: during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, the United States brazenly launched a germ warfare and released a large number of fleas, rats and other creatures carrying pathogenic bacteria in the border areas, posing a great threat to the safety and health of our people. The Party and the State prepared for a rainy day and launched the Patriotic Health Campaign to clean up sanitary blind spots and establish personal hygiene habits - including the advocacy of "not drinking raw water", which reversed the drinking water habits of thousands of years and improved the health awareness of the people.

Of course, "drinking boiled water" here does not mean drinking very hot water, but boiling it first and letting it cool before drinking. It is generally believed that drinking too hot water frequently will irritate the throat and digestive tract, and over time, it is easy to induce tumors. As for how hot is considered "hot", everyone feels differently, but generally speaking, you can drink it safely if it is as hot as "lukewarm water".

In addition, although boiling water can kill most bacteria, some bacteria's "eggs" (standard name is "spores") can survive at 100 degrees Celsius, and when the temperature drops, they turn into bacteria and reproduce again. Therefore, if boiled water is left for a long time (for example, more than 12 hours), it is actually unsafe, and the bacteria may have made a comeback.

Therefore, boil the water, let it cool down before drinking it, and it is best to add this sentence: don’t drink water that has been left for too long.

Source: Chongqing Science and Technology Museum

Author: Mantou Laoyao, a university teacher and PhD in chemistry, is engaged in research on food safety.

Review experts: Huang He, Li Chunli, Chen Tao, Xu Xiaoping

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