SC - Tea Blocks

[Philip & Susan Troy]

LrdRas at aol.com wrote:

> It is technically a beer which is what
> i remind my customers at the store when they purchase their "rice Wine". Rice
> is a grain. Beers are produced from grain. Wines are produced from fruit.

Bear in mind these terms are applied for the use of Westerners, by
Westerners, and the people in countries which produce rice or other
grain "wines" couldn't care less about the distinctions Europeans care
to apply. It's tasty stuff that will make you drunk if misused, that's
all. Bear in mind also that the single nation that has admittedly
contributed the most to wine art and technology makes some of the
_worst_ beer on earth, and are in little or no position to effectively
define terms outside of their scope...;  )

BTW, the distinction between wines and beers is blurred even in some
parts of Europe, primarily, but not exclusively, in England, where the
lucky locals drink barley wine, and also used to refer to Lowland Scotch
whiskys as "malt brandy" until the nineteenth century or so. 
> 
> <<Or do I have this wrong in the first place?>>
> 
> No. You are correct that people generally refer to sake as "rice wine". I
> would be surprised to find that description used outside Anglo-centric
> cultures such as the USA.

It _is_ interesting to wonder why Europeans and European-educated Asians
who first translated the drinking poetry of people like Li Po chose to
translate terms like "kao liang", which, unless I'm mistaken, simply
means "sorghum", as "wine". It may be that A'aql al Zib is right, and it
is a matter of alcohol content: some of the Asian grain preparations
have an alcohol content closer to whisky than to ale. I think another
factor maybe that wine is the contemplative person's beverage, the
poet's beverage, rather than beer, which might be seen as a workingman's
beverage, places like ancient Egypt and Babylonia excepted, perhaps. 

Adamantius
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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