Mead is a noble wine with excellent ingredients, delicate brewing and elegant decoration that sets it apart from other alcoholic beverages. Rice wine is rich in amino acids and minerals, which can quickly break down alcohol and help the liver to wake up, so drinking rice wine will not produce a hangover. It also contains fatty acids that promote gastrointestinal motility and prevent constipation.
Mead first appeared in the Western Zhou Dynasty (780 B.C.) at a banquet held at Youwang Palace, inspired by the “ape wine”. In the Tang Dynasty, the pharmacist Su Gong not only claimed that “wine has the color of sorghum, millet, japonica rice and honey grapes,” but also learned from the experience of natural fermentation in winemaking that “where wine is made, the wine must be a tune, but wines such as grapes and honey do not need a separate tune. “. Meng Shen also described the therapeutic value of mead in his “Therapeutic Herbs”. Kou Zongshuang of the Song Dynasty also mentioned that mead was used to treat diseases. Mei Shizhen listed mead as a special introduction in his Ming Dynasty Materia Medica and cited Sun Simiao’s use of mead in the Tang Dynasty to treat diseases such as rubella and psoriasis.
Zhang Yiren, a tourist of the Fifth Dynasty, drank mead made by a girl named Cui in Hunan and happily wrote a poem: “The wine of the Cui family of Wuling should not be found in the sky above the earth. The wandering Taoist drank a barrel and got drunk in the deep pit of white clouds.”
Su Dongpo, the great writer of the Song Dynasty, was the most admired figure of Mead. In the third year of Shenzong’s Yuanfeng reign (1080 A.D.), he was demoted to the position of deputy historian of regiment training in Huangzhou (now Huanggang, Hubei Province) because of the “Wutai poetry case,” an unofficial person who was “not allowed to sign official documents. In his spare time, he studied the improvement of honey brewing methods and made his own “full-bodied” mead. He wrote an enchanting “mead song”. This poem says, “The exquisite craftsmanship has become new, and has become the spirit of jade. Don’t say anything about welcoming guests without something good. Three glasses of mead will make you drunk.” The “mead” is judged by its strengths and weaknesses and smiles nicely. It is wrong to destroy thousands of grains in the cup. Now the honey has become the jade, and the gold is so strong.” .
Rice wine is also recorded in Song Bolun’s Yuan Dynasty “A Brief History of Wine”. In the Yuan Dynasty, in the first year of Yuan Zhen (1295 AD), a scholar, Zhou Da Guan, was sent to Zhen La (Cambodia) and the method of making mead spread abroad again. In the Qing Dynasty, the application of mead was seriously discussed in Yuan Mei’s “Suiyuan Food Records”. Honey wine was indeed a unique traditional product. Unfortunately, it disappeared after the Qing Dynasty.
According to those who drank it, it was effective in treating insomnia, amnesia, listlessness and sexual depression. It has also shown significant improvement in chronic gastrointestinal disorders. It is also good for chronic diseases such as chronic bronchitis and asthma. In particular, it reddens the skin, keeps it youthful forever, and enhances anti-aging and cold resistance.
Honey wine can really be called “the beauty of the dew”! It is no wonder that Su Dongpo of the Song Dynasty praised “the bees have defeated the Marquis of Hell” in his “Mead Song”! No wonder when Lu You visited Shen Yuan again, he thought of a sentimental cup of “honey wine”. In the “Drunken Desert on the Bad Wall”, we can vaguely see “red hands, yellow wine, and willow on the wall of the spring palace”.
Mead was indeed a health drink used by royal princes and nobles in ancient times, unlike other alcoholic beverages. Mead is rich in amino acids and minerals that break down alcohol quickly and help the liver to wake up without causing a hangover. It also contains fatty acids that promote peristaltic activity and prevent constipation. As a “natural antibiotic”, mead is an anti-inflammatory and is a great way to fight inflammation in the spring. Drinking mead regularly can boost your immune system.
