Cold water tastes better than warm

[wolram]

To me cold water tastes nice, but leave it for a few minutes to warm (slightly) and it tastes horrible, is this just my taste, or do you find the same, if yes why does it taste different?

 

[Danger]

I suspect that the cold simply numbs your taste buds a bit. That would also explain why something like icecream tastes better if you let it thaw a bit.

 

[Proton Soup]

i don't know how universal it is, but it is at least mentioned in the bible, way before refrigeration. may be an adaptation against drinking contaminated water. you'd expect cold sources of water to have fewer pathogens, right?

 

[Gokul43201]

i don't know how universal it is, but it is at least mentioned in the bible, way before refrigeration.

Ice and iced water have been popular with rulers and other rich folk from way back (~ 3000BC) in Mesopotamia, through the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese/Mongols, Mughals and most of medieval Europe (and in all cases, the ice had to be shipped over from the nearest mountains).

In most of these cases (particularly in Egypt, the Middle East and India), it was likely just the natural antidote to really hot weather.

 

[Proton Soup]

Ice and iced water have been popular with rulers and other rich folk from way back (~ 3000BC) in Mesopotamia, through the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese/Mongols, Mughals and most of medieval Europe (and in all cases, the ice had to be shipped over from the nearest mountains).

In most of these cases (particularly in Egypt, the Middle East and India), it was likely just the natural antidote to really hot weather.

wasn't aware of that. stories of say the french making ice cream type desserts with ice shipped in from the alps isn't too surprising, but getting it to egypt seems extravagant unless I'm less familiar with the geography than i think i am.

 

[Gokul43201]

wasn't aware of that. stories of say the french making ice cream type desserts with ice shipped in from the alps isn't too surprising, but getting it to egypt seems extravagant unless I'm less familiar with the geography than i think i am.

Extravagant? What would you call making a hundred thousand slaves haul millions of tons of rock for over a dozen years, to build a giant box with a tolerance of better than 0.1% on all dimensions, to chuck your carcass into?

 

[Blenton]

slaves

Not by what they said on National Geographic.

 

[turbo]

It's not hard to ship ice. Maine used to be the lumber capitol of the new world and its ice capitol. Those distinctions were related because a major use for sawdust from the sawmills was to insulate blocks of ice so that they could be shipped with minimal losses. Ice was cut from ponds and lakes in the winter, layered with sawdust and stored in ice-houses for warm-weather shipment to New York, Boston, etc, and indeed lots of it found its way onto ships headed for the Caribbean to supply refrigeration and cool drinks for plantation-owners. The ships came back with molasses, often, which was turned into rum in Boston and other ports.

 

[Gokul43201]

Not by what they said on National Geographic.

Right, I guess I was being a little too fast and loose with that description (no doubt the other numbers in it are also only roughly correct). I think I saw that one too (or something similar on the History channel), but it's been a while. I can't recall what it did say about the laborers, other than that there was a more complicated social structure than just the common image of the slave-master relationship.

 

[Proton Soup]

well, royal extravagance aside, i still suspect there's something more primal to our preference of cold water. we're not all descended from kings.