Gaby
It’s well-known that a cup of good tea can work wonders after a long, stressful day. Research even suggests that tea can extend your life. Now a new study says this beloved beverage saved many lives in the 18th century. The researchers found that the rise in tea’s popularity across England during the Industrial Revolution was linked to a drop in mortality rates, even when sanitary conditions were dire. The study suggests this happened because boiling water for tea killed bacteria and parasites that caused deadly diseases like dysentery.
Professor Francisca Antman from the University of Colorado Boulder noted, “The most remarkable part is that this happened before we understood the importance of clean water.”
Antman said tea became accessible to nearly every English person by the late 1780s, during the Industrial Revolution. This period saw a big increase in urban population density. Many people lived in cramped conditions and could not avoid infectious diseases. Mortality rates sometimes soared because of those illnesses. However, Antman said, “there was a remarkable decline in mortality that can be attributed to the advent of tea and, more specifically, the boiling of water.”
Dysentery, a severe gastrointestinal disease known as “bloody flux,” caused many deaths across countries in the 18th century. In some regions of Europe, large outbreaks of dysentery accounted for as many as 90 percent of deaths.
What Researchers Discovered
Professor Antman’s team analyzed data from over 400 parishes across England. She enlisted leading demographers and historians who did a huge amount of work on the project. She said the research was possible because a vast trove of historical data has survived to this day. “Very few places in the world have such data,” she emphasized.
The researchers focused on how mortality rates changed after tea became popular and widely available. They examined the water sources used in each parish, especially whether the water was flowing.
Antman noted, “In areas where we believed water quality was poorer, the introduction of tea was associated with a significant decrease in mortality.” This was mainly because people began boiling water for tea, the Daily Mail reported.
Key Takeaways
In many developing countries, access to clean water remains a challenge even in the 21st century. Antman believes England’s obsession with tea shows how a simple behavior—boiling water before drinking—can have big public-health effects. People changed their behavior simply because they wanted to drink tea, she concluded.
Looking back at this episode offers lessons for today’s world, where many people still lack access to clean drinking water.
