Why is mead making a comeback? The craft brewers in Hong Kong reviving ancient alcoholic beverage for the modern drinker
- Honey based, mead had its origins in China 9,000 years ago and was popular with everyone from the Vikings to the ancient Greeks. Today, it’s making a comeback
- In Hong Kong, it is one of the only alcoholic drinks that can be brewed using local ingredients – ‘we’re preserving a bit of Hong Kong culture,’ one maker says
Mead, the so-called nectar of the gods, is said to be one of mankind’s earliest forays into crafting alcohol, predating even beer or wine – and it all began in China, some 9,000 years ago.
In 2005, Dr Patrick McGovern – the scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Project for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, in Philadelphia, in the United States – made a groundbreaking discovery while in Jiahu, in China’s Henan province.
“You could call this extreme beverage a ‘Neolithic grog’. It illustrates once again the hold that alcoholic beverages have on the human race,” he wrote in a blog soon after the breakthrough, titled “The Wonders That Were Jiahu: The World’s Earliest Fermented Beverage”.
A relic of the unfashionable past, mead had its heyday in the earliest centuries of civilisation as it became popular with everyone from the Vikings to the Greeks. Yet the wonders of mead have long gone unnoticed outside medieval history.
However, in 2019, mead saw a brief resurgence thanks to nicely timed appearances in the hit television series Game of Thrones, and production of the drink in the US has surged over the past two decades – according to the American Mead Makers Association, the number of commercial meaderies in the country has increased by 650 per cent since 2003.
