Why Do Americans Love Ice In Drinks？

Joshua+Engel

导读：作者发现，美国人特别喜欢在饮料里加冰块，他想知道这是不是与他们的文化历史有一定的渊源。

I have personally noticed that Americans like to put ice in their drinks including water， soda and beer. Is there a cultural or historical influence to this？

Ice changes the taste of things， covering some of the flavors in food.In the case of water， you see it clearly when tap water is being used. Plain tap water often does not taste good. Ice reduces the bad flavor， making the water delicious. They also often use a slice of lemon for the same purpose.

Americans usually dont have ice in their mineral waters. Europeans dont serve tap water， because the tap water is usually undrinkable even with ice. The water is nearly always bottled. Europeans also have a taste for some flavor in their water. I find European mineral waters taste a little like soap， but Europeans like the taste.

Sodas are a somewhat different story. Sodas are served very cold because of the carbonation. Drinking cold soda can cool you down really fast. There are a lot of sugar in sodas， but cold can reduce the taste of sweetness. If you drink your soda warm， that extra sugar will seem bad to Americans. Europeans dont seem to mind that， but I avoid sodas in Europe because I find them unpleasantly warm and sticky.

Finally， theres beer. Nobody puts ice in beer， but Americans generally drink their beer “ice cold”， killing what little flavor it had. They generally start with very lightly-flavored beers to start with. Its as if they dont actually like beer， much as they dont seem to like coffee， so they fill it up with sugar and milk. Overall， it seems that Americans hate strong bitter flavors.

相关链接：德国人对规格要求得很严，如果你购买150毫升的汽水，他们会给你满满的150毫升，而不會用冰块来凑数。这就是德国人喝汽水不加冰块的原因。

Vocabulary

mineral adj. 矿物的

carbonation n. 碳酸化作用

（Can you help the writer find the answer？）