Extra History: Dividing the Middle East

Reader mode
Terra Novan said:
From the description, the beans would have lost pretty much all of their aromas AND also spoiled by the time they reached the European coffeehouse, which means it would have been just a bitter, mildly aromatic caffeinated black water.

You can argue that the former applies to modern-day coffee (personally, I think it is just a bias), but the latter is objectively gross.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
One: replace "mildly aromatic" with "highly malodorous"

Two: it is indeed just a bias. A bias towards reality.

The Narrator said:
What sort of weird coffee have you been smelling?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The same you have. It's just that my nose works properly, apparently.

Fresh coffee doesn't taste very good, but it smells just fine.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, the first half of that statement reflects reality, at least.
Norseman said:
Even as a child, I always liked the smell of coffee. It really is amazing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Indeed, it is amazing how something can so quickly make a room uninhabitable with it's foul stench.

Terra Novan said:
It's nothing more than fuel. Granted, it's a nice-smelling fuel.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
In the same way skunks, garbage, and rotting onions are nice-smelling, IE not at all.
 
@krinsbez

Look, it's quite simple. The process of making hot coffee produces a variety of compounds that interact with the sense of smell. Most people find these compounds pleasurable. They're not objectively wrong to think so. Some people clearly find them not pleasurable. They're not objectively wrong to think so either.

It's like cilantro. Most people have a genetic marker that makes cilantro a tasty spice. Some people have the opposite genetic marker, and to them cilantro tastes like soap.
 
Simon_Jester said:
@krinsbez

Look, it's quite simple. The process of making hot coffee produces a variety of compounds that interact with the sense of smell. Most people find these compounds pleasurable. They're not objectively wrong to think so. Some people clearly find them not pleasurable. They're not objectively wrong to think so either.

It's like cilantro. Most people have a genetic marker that makes cilantro a tasty spice. Some people have the opposite genetic marker, and to them cilantro tastes like soap.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's fair.

(I like to state that my taste in food is objectively correct, but I'm not actually serious.)
 
@krinsbez COFFEEHATER KINDRED!

I to can't stand the smell of coffee. I've never been able to. When I was a kid and went grocery shopping with my mom, I always had to hold my breath or my nose whenever we walked down or even got near the coffee aisle. It's gotten better but the coffee aisle almost made me heave when I was little.

The less said about the taste, the better.
 
Yeah, I can't relate because I need my stimulants and I will crunch on raw-ass coffee beans if I have to. I might hesitate before just stirring grounds in water and drinking that... unless I had ice cubes, then I can just make shitty iced coffee, it's fine.
 
Thread's been inactive for a month.
In the meantime, here's a series about Rasputin a couple months after Mike Duncan was done talking about him:





Along with a video about early 20th century black activist Marcus Garvey:


Man have the Patreon shoutouts gotten long.
 
Last edited:
The Narrator said:
I don't think any of us is surprised that Disney's take on Mulan was inaccurate. Honestly, women passing as men to join the army was really common throughout history, right up until the point that they started giving recruits medical exams.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That video it's ok but it leaves out a lot of context.

There is this one excellent thread in askhistorians about Mulan, is quite a great read:

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com

This creates from the outset some very interesting and problematic issues with the Disnified version. For one, though Mulan and her people are indeed called to serve against invaders, it's never specified in the Ballad of Mulan which invaders they're talking about, and it certainly never talks about "Get[ting] down to business to defeat the Huns/Xiongnü"… because, well, the "Huns" were already there, in Northern Wei… as its emperors, officials, and population. Northern Wei was a Tuoba xianbei state that had partially sinified itself… but was still viewed by the Southern Han Chinese (of the Liu Song and Southern Qi Dynasties, respectively) as themselves the barbarians.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
[...] She's not sneaking off in the middle of the night on a stolen horse with a borrowed saddle. She says to her parents, "hey, Dad can't go fight, I'm gonna go buy a horse and go off to war." And her parents don't try to stop her. Yeah, sure, they're sad and all, but such is life in a time of war. What they're not terribly concerned about is the fact that she's a girl.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
[...] This hearkens back to the fact that Northern Wei, for all it desperately wanted to be, was not totally culturally Chinese... it still had many of the social and gender norms inherited from the Asian steppes and their formerly nomadic traditions - traditions like boys and girls should be trained to fight and defend their home, they should all be capable with the horse, bow, and sword... and that it was not entirely unheard of for men and women to serve alongside one another.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
Last edited:
And the goddamn Emu war is probably going to be the only time my home state of Western Australia comes up in Extra History in any meaningful way. :confused:
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Back
Top