What did people drink before the discovery of tea?

 What did people drink before the discovery of tea?

World Tea Day was recently observed. Tea is a universal beverage and is drunk more than any other beverage.
The original homeland of tea is China, where people have been drinking it for thousands of years. From there it gradually spread to Central Asia. The people of Europe are responsible for introducing tea to the rest of the world.
For a time after the discovery of sea routes from Europe to the East, there was a great deal of trade in tea, and thus the drink spread all over the world.
The tea trade played an important role in the shipping industry. Tea has also had an impact on international politics and history.
The tea trade played an important role in the formation of the British Great Empire. Similarly, the war that led to the rise of the United States, the world's superpower, began with a tax on tea. The British introduced its cultivation in their occupied territories and hence India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kenya etc. are the leading producers of tea.

 

Salty tea is a wonderful addition to spices such as ginger, nutmeg, peppercorns, pepper and halibut.

Wherever the tea arrived, it adapted to the local culture and weather. Chinese people drink it without milk and sugar. The Chinese were building a road in Chitral. When I went to their camp, I saw water boiling in a big pot. When asked, he said that there is tea. Although we needed clean water. It turned out that they put a pinch of tea leaves in so much water and boiled it. This is their tea which they drink throughout the day with water and food. The British mixed milk and sugar in the tea to make it taste good. This is how most people in the world drink after learning from them.
But tea is not everywhere. Drying tea leaves in the sun makes ordinary tea which we call black tea. But if they are boiled lightly in water before drying, it becomes coffee or green tea. It tastes lighter than tea and is drunk without milk.

 

Peshawar coffee is popular which is drunk in small cups

Peshawar coffee is popular which is drunk in small cups after eating and anyway. Afghans make black tea a little lighter and drink it without milk which is called Soleimani. They do not put sugar in it but keep drinking sweets with sugar in their mouth. Garh tea was once popular in our area of ​​Chitral but now its tradition is almost gone.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad mentions a special type of tea which he used to drink without milk by adding Egyptian sugar. Probably the reddish coffee that comes from China under the name of Jasmine Tea.
Chinese people reduce their consumption of milk and its products, so they continue to drink tea without any additives. When the drink arrived in Central Asia, it contained milk, as well as salt. Then nuts (almonds, pistachios, walnuts) were added. Thus tea became more nutritious food than a soothing drink.
One of our comedians has written that people of Lahore drink milk under the pretext of tea. But if they drank Central Asian tea, they would forget about Lahore tea.
This type of tea reached the northern mountainous regions of Pakistan from Turkestan. Today, salt tea is common in Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral.
In salty tea, if spices like ginger, nutmeg, peppercorns, black pepper and halibut are added along with cream, it becomes a wonderful thing. Kashmiri tea is made slightly different from other mountainous areas.