By the time Yuan Zuzhi, the grandson of Yuan Mei, a poet in the Qing Dynasty, went to western European countries 10 for more than a few months in the ninth year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty (A.D.10), he had noticed the difference between westerners who like to drink hot water and westerners who like to drink cold water. After returning, Yuan Zuzhi specially wrote an article: "Middle-earth abstains from drinking cold water to prevent bad stomach, while Taixi drinks cold water to get rid of summer heat;" Middle-earth wine must be drunk warm, while Tessie drinks it cold. "From the above two cases, it can be seen that" drinking cold water is not good for the stomach "should be a common concept.
And now we will often see that many people also have the habit of carrying hot water outside.
As for ancient times, was drinking hot water common? The answer is no, the peasant class in China has been drinking cold water, mainly for economic reasons. Ancient farmers lacked resources and fuel. They didn't have hot vegetables and rice to eat, let alone people drinking hot water. According to Ren Yuan, a Japanese monk in Tang Wuzong's time, after he came to China, he wrote Notes on the Journey of Seeking Dharma in Tang Dynasty, describing that ordinary people in Shandong "never made soup, but only ate cold dishes all year round", and "empty cakes" and "cold dishes" were already delicious dishes for guests.
During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, tea shops, teahouses and tea houses appeared, and drinking tea went deep into the society, but ordinary people still could not afford the fuel cost of burning tea. As a result, tea vendors make tea with boiling water, which has become a business with considerable income. In the Qing Dynasty, "no drinking cold water to prevent bad stomach" actually existed only in the upper class, and most people in the lower class continued to drink cold water. Because the sanitary degree of drinking water was extremely low for a long time in ancient times, it was quite common for the ancients to have parasites in their bodies, and the methods of deworming can also be seen in different literatures.
The ancients did not have a perfect drinking water filtration system, and in the case of unclean water sources, they would also carry out limited treatment. According to the records of the British Magyarny Mission after its visit to China during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, they noticed that people on both sides of the Baihe River in Tianjin would not drink the turbid river water directly, but took the river water, put some alum in a perforated bamboo tube, and then stirred the bamboo tube in the water to purify the river water for drinking. During the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, Japanese scholar Feng Yuanshuke visited Shanghai and saw Shanghainese drinking river water in the same way.
Alum is a civil water purifier, but it can't kill germs in water. Therefore, in the Republic of China, the western theory of bacteria was introduced, and "drinking hot water" was supported by science. The government also began to advocate that "cold water should be boiled before drinking", and people gradually developed the habit of drinking hot water. In the1930s, the National Health Construction Committee wrote the Hygienic Principles for Food, Clothing, Housing and Transportation, calling on people not to drink raw water as much as possible: "Drinking raw water is an important cause of diseases and epidemics, because it contains bacteria ..." At that time, the government also specifically asked soldiers not to drink raw water as much as possible: "Drink raw water as a last resort, and choose water with the permission of military doctors or Shangguan."