Mintz’s reading focuses on sugar and how Britain was affected by the sugar and tea industries over history. Mintz argues that sugar was originally used medicinally, then treated as a spice, before becoming a sweetener for bitter drinks such as tea. He explains drinking tea with sugar was once treated as a luxury good for only wealthy British upper class, however it became a staple among working-class citizens. Mintz argues that sugar and tea drinking led to the process of “ritualization” meaning “the incorporation and symbolic reinvestment of new materials” and the processes of “extensification” and “intensification” (Mintz 9). Sugar has contradictory uses as being an everyday sweetener for everyone, yet used at special events like weddings and parties.…show more content… However, Mintz argues tea with sugar was not as nutritious as drinking a beer. Large tea consumption in Britain led to a huge trade industry between China and Britain with China exporting mass amounts of tea to Britain and importing opium in the 1800s. Mintz also explains sugar was not only used for tea, but was put in cheap porridge or breads such as “Hasty Pudding”, a type of oatmeal porridge. A main point Mintz makes is “substances such as sugar, tea, and tobacco, their forms and uses, became embedded somewhat differently in different proportions of the English social system, and the meaning attached to them varied as well” (Mintz 121). This idea is connected to globalization as an uneven process because he argues that these imported commodities do not affect a society evenly, but depend on many factors such age, class, wealth, sex, social norms,
