Let's Drink Some Beer

Beer is an alcoholic beverage made by brewing and fermenting cereals, especially malted barley, usually with the addition of hops as a flavoring agent and stabilizer. It is one of the oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic beverage, and beer was well known in ancient Egypt, where it may have been made from bread. Brewing has evolved from a cottage craft into a modern industry where large breweries export their beers worldwide. Each barrel is the equivalent of 117 liters or approximately 31 gallons. On a per capita basis, Germans consume the most beer at about 40 gallons "151 1" per person a year. Beer drinkers in the U.S. rank fourteenth in the world, with American breweries producing approximately 156,900 million barrels of beer a year.

The Egyptians and Greeks also brewed alcoholic beverages by various methods, but the term "beer" did not appear in these early languages. The Babylonians offered brewing recipes, and there are various references to beer in the Bible. The English word "beer" seems to stem from the Celtic word "beor," which referred to a malt brew made by monks at a North Gaul monastery. In the Middle Ages, monasteries were the leading producers of beer, and monks are credited with many early brewing techniques, such as the addition of hops to improve the aroma and help preserve the beer. Bottled beer was introduced in 1875 by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a city famed for its breweries. Canned beer first came on the market in the 1930s. The American beer market today is dominated by several large companies such as Miller and Anheuser Busch, though microbreweries and brew pubs that produce their own brands are becoming increasingly popular.

Tea Ser

Tea was cultivated in China in prehistoric times and was probably first used as a vegetable relish "as it was in American colonies and still is in some parts of Asia" and medicinally. At the 8th century, cultivation had begun on a commercial scale in China, and shortly in Japan. Tea was first imported into Europe by the Dutch East India Company in the early 17th century, and its subsequent popularity played an important role in the opening of Asia to Western commerce. China, where state farms are being supplanted by private ones, remains the largest tea grower of the world, tea is usually grown on plantations. Tea culture requires a protected, well-drained habitat in a warm climate with ample rainfall. The leaves are picked by hand, principally during flushes "periods of active growth", the most desirable being those near the growing tip.

Many kinds of tea are usually named for their color and grade or for their district of origin. Teas are sometimes scented by exposure to fragrant flowers, dust or inferior tea pressed into blocks. Black teas are differ from green teas in having been fermented before firing; oolongs, intermediate in color and flavor, are partially fermented. Green teas are produced chiefly in China and Japan; black teas in China, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and Kenya; and oolongs in Taiwan.