Then & NowCentury-old soda bottle find recalls Hong Kong’s role in bringing aerated drinks to Asia

The discovery last year of a century-old soda water bottle during an archaeological survey of a rubbish dump left over from the late-19th-century construction of the Tai Tam Tuk Reservoir provides more clues to early Hong Kong life than a long-discarded “empty” might at first suggest.

Aerated or soda water was invented in 1767 by British scientist Joseph Priestley – and almost by accident. A bowl of water suspended over a vat of fermenting beer in the British city of Leeds was found to have absorbed carbon dioxide; abundant fizz was the direct consequence. A method of replicating naturally occurring spark­ling mineral water, which the wealthy travelled to spa towns from Harrogate, in Britain, to Baden-Baden, in Germany, to “take” for its reputed health benefits, had been discovered.

Once the process became commercially viable, aerated-water fac­tories sprang up globally, and particularly in tropical Asia, where water contami­nation was a major problem. Water was distilled first, which rendered it safe to drink, then carbonated; sterile bottling processes ensured that contami­nation risks were greatly reduced.

Throughout the first half of the 19th century, most aerated waters, along with fortified beers, ginger ales, lemonades and other proprietary drinks, were exported from Britain in stoneware bottles. Less prone to shattering than glass, and able to withstand changing internal pressures as the carbonated drinks were transported from temperate to tropical regions, light-brown stoneware jars, usually patterned with a distinctive two-tone glazing, were manufactured by the million in Britain.

Sturdy and durable, stoneware jars were recycled across tropical Asia for storing fresh water. Even after cheap glass bottles became commonplace for water storage, stoneware jars were prized items in households that produced their own ginger ale, lemonade, barley water and other cordials.