In fact, drinking hot water has a long history in China, but this habit is only the habit of the upper class in ancient China. Because of the lack of sufficient fuel due to economy and productivity, people at the bottom of ancient China generally drank cold water. In ancient China, in addition to cooking, no fire was made, and only the old, the weak and the sick could make hot water to drink. Therefore, large-scale plagues and other diseases often broke out in ancient China.
By the time of the Republic of China, the people at the bottom of China still couldn't afford hot water. Later, the western theory of bacteria was introduced to China, and "drinking hot water" was supported by science for the first time in China. As a result, the government and other classes began to advocate people to drink hot water. Subsequently, in economically developed southeast coastal cities such as Shanghai and Wuhu, the emergence of "cooked water shops" solved the dual needs of the bottom people to drink hot water and save fuel, but it has not been popularized by the whole people.
When is it that most people in China can drink hot water at will? After 1949, the government has comprehensively strengthened the publicity and promotion of "drinking hot water" and "drinking boiled water". Central patriotic health campaign committee has repeatedly called for "repeatedly educating the masses to drink boiled water and sterilized water instead of raw water". These propaganda materials of that year, the concept of drinking boiled water to prevent diarrhea and infectious diseases, also penetrated into the minds of rural people in China.
This promotion of drinking hot water was quite successful in China at that time. Most urban residents are responsible for the hot water supply by their factories, mines and institutions, and they buy it by ticket. This supply lasted until the 1980s and 1990s.
Later, due to public canteens, large-scale steelmaking, lack of fuel and other reasons, China people returned to the era of drinking cold water. Later, with the development of science and technology and the popularization of thermos and thermos cups, most people in China can drink hot water at will, whether in urban or rural areas, rich or poor. It was China in the 1990s.