Why didn't other stimulants and substances have a strong European demand in the 15th-18th centuries? Cannabis, coca, khat, kratom, areca nut, and any other the board can add to the list. Opium seems to have had a market, so why not milder goods?
Why didn't other stimulants and substances have a strong European demand in the 15th-18th centuries? Cannabis, coca, khat, kratom, areca nut, and any other the board can add to the list. Opium seems to have had a market, so why not milder goods?
I'd think it's because people didn't smoke? Coffee and tea were the very big ones because, well, hot drinks.Sugar was introduced to Europe in the 12th century, via returning crusaders, but doesn't become widespread for some centuries (side-note: Cyprus was one of the first "Christian" sugar-growing countries, why it was considered desirable by the Venetians in the late Middle Ages). Madeira was a major sugarcane producer in the 15th century and early 16th, until eventually supplanted by the Caribbean.
Hashish is odd, as in its lack of acceptance in the West despite being known and available - I wonder if that has something to do with cultural prejudice?
I'd think it's because people didn't smoke? Coffee and tea were the very big ones because, well, hot drinks.
Granted, it doesn't answer for tobacco, but they had to get to know tobacco because they had to try it in dealing with Northern Amerindians. Where was hashish really used/smoked?
Top of my head, hashish probably developed in those regions as a relaxant that was somewhat hallal. In Western Europe, that role was already filled by alcohol. Could that be it?Hashish was eaten rather than smoked and done so in a kind of "pot patty" sort of way by drying it out and packing it tightly with other herbals. Location wise, North India, Iran, and the Middle East in general really took to it (though less so the Turkish regions earlier on). I suppose one explanation as to why that took off less well may be it couldent develop the kind of social culture around the natural group relaxation of a meal break beverages and sweeteners could.
Top of my head, hashish probably developed in those regions as a relaxant that was somewhat hallal. In Western Europe, that role was already filled by alcohol. Could that be it?
Yes, those are indeed real commodities. The drug kunduri is the ATL name for the real drug pituri, which had a widespread trade network across much of Australia - which is impressive when everything is carried by human power only. Jeeree is the ATL name for lemon-scented teatree, a product which was enjoyed by early European colonists as well as indigenous peoples, but never became widespread.@Jared '' Land of Red and Gold has a handful of Australian foods go global, including jeree, a tea-like drink, and kunduri a super tobaccoish drug. Both, I believe, are real products that didn't really take off iOTL.
Yerba Mate could have competed with tea and coffee. The custom of sharing the same mate (hollowed gourd) recipient would have been maybe unappealing to the European elites, but it could have seen popularity on the lower clases. It can also be prepared on a more traditional tea form.
It did in parts of Latin America, especially where the Jesuits were strong in the early colonial days. At the same time in Spanish America, you had colonial administrators discouraging quinoa as a "pagan" crop, despite how a few hundred km away a very "pagan" plant, yerba mate (famed by the Guarani and other local Indian groups and exported as far away as the Inca where its current name "mate" comes from), was being encouraged by the Jesuits. It seems odd how mate has always remained a niche yet coffee--initially grown only in the lands of the Ottomans and other "infidels"--has remained strong.
That includes other local crops like yaupon (a relative of yerba mate). After the Boston Tea Party, drinking yaupon (a relative of mate native to the Deep South) was a sign of patriotism (drinking tea, traditionally American to that point, meant supporting the hated British), yet a few decades later, only people too poor to drink coffee drank yaupon. No doubt it would've been possible for Southerners to promote yaupon as a drink of patriotism to the rest of the country (in 1783, the South was the economic center of the US), and as with other American traditions (apple pie, baseball, etc.), it would catch on and get spread regionally (Cuba, Dominca, Mexico, where a relative of yaupon grows in Chiapas), and globally (Japan, Taiwan, etc.). The fact that New York, Massachusetts, etc. wants the yaupon which Alabama, South Carolina, etc. grows should hopefully be good for regional unity too.