Barley Water

Barley simmered in water — Hippocrates' ancient Greek prescription, Robinson's Barley Water (Cambridge, 1823) becoming the official drink of Wimbledon in 1935.

Barley Water is one of the oldest documented therapeutic beverages in the Western world, with its medicinal use in ancient Greece described by Hippocrates in his dietary writings as a light, digestible preparation suitable for the sick, the convalescent, and those with fevers. The preparation — boiling barley in water and straining the liquid, which retains soluble starch, beta-glucan fiber, and gentle flavor from the grain — was used across the ancient Mediterranean and subsequently throughout European medical tradition as a restorative drink. Barley's cultivation stretches back to approximately 8000 BCE in the Fertile Crescent, and its early dominance as a grain crop made barley water a widely available medicinal preparation across ancient and medieval Europe. The beverage entered British mass culture most visibly through Robinson's Barley Water, a commercially produced lemon barley water made by Matthias Robinson whose company was established in 1823 in Cambridge. Robinson's became the official soft drink of the Wimbledon Championships in 1935 — a relationship that has been maintained for nearly ninety years and made Robinson's Barley Water one of the most specifically British sporting associations in commercial beverage history. In Hong Kong, Taiwan, and southern China, barley water (tai mai sui) made from Job's tears (Coix lacryma-jobi) rather than Hordeum vulgare is a standard cooling tea believed to reduce internal heat according to traditional Chinese medicine theory.