Okay, so I have to come clean about something.

I've been making Tudor history content for a long time.

And like pretty much everybody who makes Tudor history content, I have repeated a particular story.

The story goes something like this.

Tudor people didn't drink water because water was dangerous.

Everybody drank ale instead, including children, including

at breakfast because water could kill you. I have said versions of this. You have probably

heard versions of this from lots of different people. It's kind of everywhere. It just kind of

floats around in the ether. And it turns out that it is not exactly wrong, but it is a lot more complicated than that.

The full story is so much more interesting like full stories normally are, because it involves

a historiographical debate, some myth-busting, a Trinity College Dublin research team who spent

three years recreating a tutor brewhouse

and then coffee showing up and potentially sobering up an entire civilization. So today we are

going to do the whole thing. What did the tutors actually drink? Was the water really that bad?

What did they do without coffee? And why does the arrival of coffee in England in the

1650s tell us something wild about how ideas spread and why the Enlightenment happened when it did?

Settle in, get comfy, grab a beverage. We're in for a good one today, my friend.

Music grab a beverage. We're in for a good one today, my friend. Hi, friend. Welcome back to the Renaissance English History podcast. I am your host, Heather. I've

been podcasting on Tudor England for 17 years. I am, as always, delighted that you are here

with me today to do some myth busting and talk about what the tutors drank.

If this is your kind of history, the weird, specific stuff that makes the past feel really real, subscribe and hit the bell.

I put these videos out most days of the week, and they are always free.

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