“ This original version of Coca-Cola contained a small amount of coca extract and therefore a trace of cocaine. (It was eliminated early in the twentieth century, though other extracts derived from coca… Tom Standage
“ John Adams, by then one of the country's founding fathers, wrote to a friend: I know not why we should blush to confess that molasses was an essential ingredient in American independence. Many great e… Tom Standage
“ The Arabs understandably did everything they could to protect their monopoly. Coffee beans were treated before being shipped to ensure they were sterile and could not be used to seed new coffee plants… Tom Standage
“ But [Coca-Cola] was also genuinely welcomed by the servicemen in far-flung military bases: Coca-Cola reminded them of home and helped to maintain morale. Tom Standage
“ An enormous semiofficial drug-smuggling operation was established in order to improve Britain's unfavorable balance of payments with China—the direct result of the British love of tea. Tom Standage
“ The inclusion of lemon or lime juice in grog, made compulsory in 1795, therefore reduced the incidence of scurvy dramatically. And since beer contains no vitamin C, switching from beer to grog made Br… Tom Standage
“ Anyone who started a quarrel had to atone for it by buying a dish of coffee for everyone present. Tom Standage
“ Greek customs such as wine drinking were regarded as worthy of imitation by other cultures. So the ships that carried Greek wine were carrying Greek civilization, distributing it around the Mediterran… Tom Standage
“ During the first millennium BCE, even the beer-loving Mesopotamians turned their backs on beer, which was dethroned as the most cultured and civilized of drinks, and the age of wine began. Tom Standage
“ When coffee became popular in Oxford and the coffee houses selling it began to multiply, the university authorities tried to clamp down, worrying that coffee houses promoted idleness and distracted me… Tom Standage
“ Six beverages in particular—beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola—chart the flow of world history. Three contain alcohol, and three contain caffeine, but what they all have in common is that each… Tom Standage
“ Yet the history of media shows that this is just the modern incarnation of the timeless complaint of the intellectual elite, every time technology makes publishing easier, that the wrong sort of peopl… Tom Standage
“ You Americans are a very singular people, he later recalled to one of his friends. I went with my automaton all over my own country—the Germans wondered and said nothing. In France they exclaimed, Mag… Tom Standage
“ Illness and death are not the only consequences of the lack of access to water; it also hinders education and economic development. Widespread illness makes countries less productive, more dependent o… Tom Standage
“ Ten years after the Boston Tea Party, tea was still far more popular than coffee, which only became the more popular drink in the mid-nineteenth century. Coffee's popularity grew after the duty on imp… Tom Standage
“ These sacrifices sustained the cosmic cycle: Maize became blood, and blood was then transformed back into maize. Sacrificial victims were referred to as tortillas for the gods. Tom Standage
“ There were no musicians or dancers, for Plato believed that educated men ought to be capable of entertaining themselves by speaking and listening in turns in an orderly manner. Tom Standage
“ The Coca-Cola Company is the biggest single supplier of such drinks. Globally, the company supplies 3 percent of humanity's total liquid intake. Tom Standage
“ Post Horses and Conveyances of every description may be ordered by the electric telegraph to be in readiness on the arrival of a train, at either Paddington or Slough Station. Tom Standage
“ But an oft-heard complaint, as companies spread their tentacles around the world and compete on a global playing field, is that globalization is merely a new form of imperialism. Tom Standage
