# The Hidden History of Beverages — Part One: History

[1. At the Origins: What Our Ancestors Drank](https://herbalmind.bar/history/what-our-ancestors-drank/) — What our earliest ancestors drank before anything was brewed — water, blood, milk, sap and fruit — and what the evidence can and cannot say about it.

[2. Before Brewing: What Was Chewed for What It Does](https://herbalmind.bar/history/bark-chewing-before-brewing/) — The first evidence of taking a plant for what it does rather than as food — most of it from chimpanzees — and what tree bark contains.

[3. Fire, Pots and the Long Wait for Soup](https://herbalmind.bar/history/fire-pots-and-the-first-boiled-drink/) — The long gap between the first fire and the first boiled drink, and what boiling changed.

[4. The First Tea: From Chewing the Leaf to Brewing It](https://herbalmind.bar/history/the-first-tea/) — Where tea began, the oldest tea found by archaeologists, how pressed and aged tea came about, and what chemists find in tea today.

[5. Goats, Sufis and Seven Beans: The Origin Stories of Coffee](https://herbalmind.bar/history/coffee-origin-stories/) — Where the famous coffee origin stories come from, what coffee was before the roasted bean, and how Yemen lost its coffee monopoly.

[6. Conquistadors and Cacao: How a Sacred Drink Became a Sweet One](https://herbalmind.bar/history/conquistadors-and-cacao/) — How the bitter Aztec and Maya cacao drink became sweet European chocolate, how it was proved that the Maya drank cacao, and how cacao ceremonies are sold today.

[7. Blessed, Banned or Simply Ignored: What the Church Actually Prohibited](https://herbalmind.bar/history/what-the-church-banned/) — Which consciousness-altering substances the Church actually banned, and why — fly agaric, peyote, mad honey, tobacco, opium, hashish and wine.

[8. The Tea Debt and the Opium Accounts](https://herbalmind.bar/history/tea-debt-and-opium-wars/) — How Britain’s demand for tea led to the opium trade and the Opium Wars, how Britain learned to grow its own tea, and how opium was finally ended in China.

[9. Taxed, Shipped Out or Outlawed: What Became of the Other Plants](https://herbalmind.bar/history/coffee-bans-coca-mate-ayahuasca/) — What became of local psychoactive plants while coffee and tea spread — yohimbe, coca, mate, coffee in Sweden and ayahuasca.

[10. Coca-Cola: How a Coca-Based Drink Became the Symbol of the Caffeine Era](https://herbalmind.bar/history/coca-cola-and-the-coca-leaf/) — How Coca-Cola went from a coca and kola tonic to a caffeine drink, why it still uses coca leaf, and Bolivia’s fight over the leaf at the UN.

[11. Coffee in the Twenty-First Century: What Threatens It and Who Gets Paid](https://herbalmind.bar/history/coffee-in-the-21st-century/) — Where Arabica comes from, what threatens coffee, why it cannot be saved in a seed vault, and who is paid for it.

[12. Corporations and Sacred Substances: How Spirituality Is Turned into a Commodity](https://herbalmind.bar/history/sacred-substances-as-commodities/) — How sacred practices become products: Gordon Wasson and María Sabina, patents on psilocybin, and cacao ceremonies sold to tourists.

[13. What Caffeine Does to an Argument](https://herbalmind.bar/history/what-caffeine-does-to-an-argument/) — What research says about caffeine, psychedelics and the mind — persuasion, creativity, neural growth and political views.

[14. The End of Part One: What the History Adds Up To](https://herbalmind.bar/history/what-the-history-adds-up-to/) — The conclusion of the history part: why coffee, tea and chocolate won, why other plants were banned, and what is changing now.

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