WHAT LONDON DRINKS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXI, Issue III, 18 July 1903, Page 150

WHAT LONDON DRINKS.

In dealing with this colossal problem I do not pretend to a perfect accuracy (says a writer in the “New Penny Magazine”). It would, of course, be practically impossible to specify all the various kinds and quantities of liquid drunk in the great Metropolis in a single day. 1 have even passed over pure water, the first and simplest beverage of all; not because the water drunk in London is at all a negligible quantity, but. rather,

because it is not an artificial drink. 1 have confined my study to the principal liquors, beer, wine and spirits; to tea. coffee, cocoa, and to mineral waters. From the nature of the case these estimates are merely approximations to the truth, arrived at by calculation. At the present day about 177,000,000 gallons of (British) beer are drunk in London yearly, and 485,000 gallons daily. Taking 485.000 gallons or 78 000 cubic

feet, a barrel 76ft long by 36ft in mean diameter, measured internally between the bung and head, will hold this quantity. Wine has been drunk in London from Romano-British, if not from earlier times. At present the quantity consumed in a day is about 5500 gallons, or 44,000 pints, which could be stored in a wine vault 52ft square and 1 foot deep. Of spirits—home and foreign—about

16,000 gallons are drunk daily by Londoners; and, as a gallon is 0.16 of a cubic foot in volume, a demijohn 20ft high and 13ft in diameter, measured internally, would supply the town. Tea, which has a mythical origin in China, as wine has in Europe, and is referred to in the days of the Emperor Chin Wung, who flourished about 2737 8.C., was introduced into England at the beginning of the sixteenth century, if not earlier. About 33,000.0001 b of tea are now consumed in London yearly, or some 90,000 lb daily. An ordinary tea-chest, containing about 4.5 cubic feet, holds from 80 to 100 (say 90) lb of tea, according to its quality. A chest of 4500 cubit feet or 20ft high by 15ft square, inernal dimensions, would therefore hold the 90.0001 b which London requires every day. Coffee —which owes its name t > Kaffain East Africa, where it grows wild—was, according to an Oriental legend, discovered by a Deverish, Hadji Omar, who. when he was expelled from Mocha, in 1285. and hiding in a cave, roasted the berry to sustain his life. About lOOewt (112 0001 b) of coffee beans are consumed

in London daily, and assuming that a coffee sack or bale 11 cubic feet in contents will hold a hundredweight of beans, a sack or a canister 14ft high and 10ft in diameter will serve London for a day. According to a little book on cocoa by “Historicus,” the use of this beverage dates from the mythical times of Quetzalcoatl, king of the Toltecs, to whom it

was administered by a magician named Titlacahua in order that he might transport himself wherever he wished. About 22,400,0001 b of raw cocoa, or “nibs,” are consumed in the United Kingdom yearly, and about 3,200,0001 b in London—that is to say, 88001 b daily. Probably not more than half of this, or 4400'.b, is drunk as cocoa and chocolate, the rest going in the preparation of nibs and in the manufacture of sweets. A tin about

9ft high by sft wide and 3ft thick will hold this quantity. The reports of the Metropolitan police give the number of licensed public-houses.

including hotels, taverns and bars, in London as about 14,000. They are of all shapes and sizes; but with an average of 50ft of frontage if they were placed side by side they would stretch 130 miles, or from London to Birmingham. Assuming that each could be contained in a cube 50ft in the side, they would form a single enormous publie-house, towering above St. Paul’s Cathedral as shown in our illustration.