Why do you clink glasses when drinking? Do you despise each other without clinking glasses?

Clinking glasses before drinking has become an unwritten agreement in wine culture in many countries. Maybe you think this is just a polite behavior, but little known is that there are many unexpected stories hidden behind the custom of clinking glasses.

The picture above is an ancient Egyptian mural, roughly painted in BC 1300.

1. The legend of exorcising ghosts

Medieval people would say loudly when clinking glasses? Cheers? This is done to drive away monsters that may be lurking inside. This behavior is most common among Germanic tribes. Not only did they shout loudly, but they also said? Cheers? After that, they violently hit each other's glasses and spilled wine on the table to scare away ghosts and evil spirits.

2. Avoid the legend of poisoning

In ancient times, it was common to kill enemies by poisoning wine, especially in medieval Italy. Dining with the host can be very dangerous, and the guests may be regarded as potential enemies at any time and poisoned by poisoned wine. Therefore, the way to deal with poisoning at that time was to smash the owner's cup with the owner's own cup, so that part of the liquid in one cup spilled into another cup. If the host drinks first, everything will be fine! It should be noted here that in the past, in most cases, wine was packed in a metal flat-bottomed beaker (tin, silver or gold), so there was no violent impact.

This is very important.

Moreover, if people at that time drank * * * wine, guests would stare at the host's eyes after toasting and try to detect whether the host was hiding something, and would refuse to drink in time if necessary. Although banquet poisoning and murder only exist in novels and movies now, and wine glasses have been replaced by collision-resistant glasses, the habit of clinking glasses and staring at each other's eyes after clinking glasses still exists in some wine cultures.

The ancient Greeks noticed the fact that when drinking a glass of wine, the nose can smell the fragrance of the wine, the eyes can see the color of the wine, and the tongue can taste the wine, but the ears can't participate in such happiness.

In order to make up for this regret, the Greeks came up with a way to clink glasses before drinking, so that the crisp sound of glasses could reach their ears. In this way, ears can enjoy drinking water like other organs.

I don't think it's right not to clink glasses, because the sudden epidemic this year has made the originally lively Spring Festival much colder. In order to avoid cross infection, disease control in some areas advocates not touching glasses when toasting, so some people don't touch glasses with you. I think this is the right thing to do. We should respond to national policies and start from ourselves in order to fight the epidemic.