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Alcoholic drinks from Jiahu, Henan, China

Jiahu mixed fermented beverage贾湖

Chemical residues in pottery jars from the Neolithic village of Jiahu show that a fermented drink of rice, honey and fruit (hawthorn and/or grape) was made there about 7000–6600 BC. Everything about how it was made is inferred; the authors propose that the rice was made sweet by chewing or malting and that the honey and fruit supplied the sugar and yeast for fermentation.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Jiahu mixed fermented beverage itself.

Short entryAlcoholic drinks

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo recipe survives. The ingredients are inferred from chemical residues in 16 pottery vessels.
Rice[mcgovern2004]
HoneyInferred from beeswax-type compounds[mcgovern2004]
Hawthorn fruit and/or wild grapeInferred from tartaric acid; both have seeds at the site[mcgovern2004]
Starterunknown; the authors propose that rice was saccharified by chewing and/or malting, and that the fruit and honey brought the yeast
Start
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StarchSugarAlcoholCO₂

What changes: Rice starch turns to sugar, perhaps by chewing or sprouting the grain

Step 1 of 3
Make the rice sweet (proposed)
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts

The paper dates mould-based saccharification to between the mid-third millennium BC and the Shang Dynasty, so it was probably not used at Jiahu. Output: sugary rice mash.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Chemical residues in pottery jars from the Neolithic village of Jiahu show that a fermented drink of rice, honey and fruit (hawthorn and/or grape) was made there about 7000–6600 BC. Everything about how it was made is inferred; the authors propose that the rice was made sweet by chewing or malting and that the honey and fruit supplied the sugar and yeast for fermentation.

What makes this one different

Jiahu is known only from chemistry, not from a recipe. It mixed rice with honey and fruit. In the liquids from lidded bronze vessels at Anyang and Changzikou, the paper found no sign of honey or a plant additive.

Date
Jiahu subperiod III, about 7000–6600 BC (radiocarbon, calibrated)
Evidence
Residues from 16 pottery vessels were analysed; FT-IR and HPLC results for 13 of the 16 matched each other

Related ferments

Variants

  • Shang and Western Zhou bronze-vessel rice and millet drinksDrinks of the second millennium BC, some still liquid inside sealed bronze vessels, with no honey or plant additive found at Anyang and Changzikou; the same paper estimates such jiu at probably 10–15 % alcohol by weight.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Identified by McGovern and colleagues in 2004 from organic residues absorbed into pottery jars from Jiahu, one of the earliest chemically confirmed fermented drinks.

  1. [mcgovern2004] McGovern P.E., Zhang J., Tang J. et al. 2004, Fermented beverages of pre- and proto-historic China, PNAS 101(51):17593–17598paper
  2. [s2] Penn Museum news release on the Jiahu findingsweb