IMPROVEMENTS IN AERATED BEVERAGES
Year: 1880

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Lewis Shapter, of No. 1, the Barnfield, in the City of
Exeter, Physician, for an Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN AERATED
BEVERAGES."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Lewis Shapter at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 25th October 1880.
LEWIS SHAPTER, of No. 1, the Barnfield, in the City of Exeter, Physician.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN AERATED BEVERAGES."
The need of the present day is to have at a moderate cost an absolutely pure
table water possessing invigorating and restorative or tonic properties, without the
dangers of alcohol, or unwholesome, immatured, and acid wines on the one hand,
and without containing mineral, medicinal, and oversweetened compounds on the
other.
To supply this want I form an aerated beverage of distilled water charged with
carbonic acid gas, and containing "thein," the active principle of tea, coffee, and
other popular beverages.
This aerated beverage may be made either "dry" or sweet.
Each ten ounce bottle of "dry" beverages is made to contain about one grain
of citrate of thein, and two or three drops of a solution of burnt sugar to impart
colour.
Each ten ounce bottle of sweet beverage contains in addition to the one grain
of citrate of thein and the two or three drops of burnt sugar solution, about two
drachms and a half of sugar and about four grains of citric acid.
The science of chemistry having proved that the substances used as popular
beverages, whether tea, coffee, Paraguay tea, or paulinia sorbitis (guarana) contain
the same active principle, thein, and that cocoa contains an active principle called
theobromine, which is closely allied to if not identical with thein. I use the word
thein as including all these substances, and the same substance in other plants
although under a different nomenclature.
It is claimed for the above beverage (1) that the water with which it is made
being distilled is of absolute purity; (2) that in containing the citrate of thein it
contains the active and essential principle of the popular non-alcoholic beverages of
the day; and (3) that these beverages, viz., tea and coffee, for the most part are
by this means for the first time introduced for consumption in the form of a pure
aerated dry or sweet water.
.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed
by the said Lewis Shapter in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 25th
April 1881.
LEWIS SHAPTER, of No. 1, the Barnfield, in the City of Exeter, Physician.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN AERATED BEVERAGES."
The need of the present day is to have at a moderate cost an absolutely pure
table water possessing invigorating and restorative or tonic properties, without the
dangers of alcohol, or unwholesome, immatured, and acid wines on the one hand,
and without containing mineral, medicinal, and oversweetened compounds on the
other.
To supply this want I form an aerated beverage of distilled water charged with
carbonic acid gas, and containing "thëin," the active principle of tea, coffee, and
other popular beverages.
This aerated beverage, which I call aquathein or sparkling theine water, may be
made of different degrees of dryness or sweetness, according as to whether syrup is
used and the amount of it.
Each ten ounce bottle of aquathein is made to contain one grain of thein or one
of the salts of thein, preferably the citrate, two or three drops of a solution of
burnt sugar to impart colour, and simple syrup may be added to the amount of
from two to ten fluid drachms, according to the degree of dryness or sweetness
required.
If syrup is added citric acid is used in small quantity as a preservative to the
syrup.
Aquathein being in itself a non-alcoholic but restorative beverage becomes the
best basis for the manufacture of other aerated waters, such, for example, as
gingerade, lemonade, &c., so that these aerated waters hitherto deriving their value
from the flavouring contained in them may hereby become restorative and
nitrogenous or nutritive from the presence of thein, and so may rightly and
advantageously take the place of alcoholic beverages.
The science of chemistry having proved that the substances used as popular
beverages, whether tea, coffee, Paraguay tea, or paulinia sorbilis (guarana) contain
the same active principle, thein, and that cocoa contains an active principle called
theobromine, which is closely allied if not identical with thein. It is further
claimed that whether this substance, thein, is called theine, caffeine, paraguaine,
guaranine, theobromine, or any other name, all these substances being chemically
identical and now introduced in the form of an aerated water under the better
recognized name of thein, the name of thein is sufficient to include the same
substance in other plants although under a different nomenclature.
To manufacture aquathëin a solution in distilled water is first prepared of thein
or one of the salls of thein, and of any desired amount of coloring material and
sugar, if any sugar is to be used; a small quantity of this solution containing the
requisite proportion of thein is put into each bottle, and the bottle is then filled
up with distilled water charged with carbonic acid gas in any ordinary way of
bottling aerated waters. Flavouring materials, such as are used in the manu-
facture of gingerade, and lemonade, or other desired flavoring material, might also
be placed into the bottles before filling them with water charged with carbonic
acid gas.
The manufacture of thein or any of its salts is well understood by chemists, and
it is a well known article of commerce, so that it is unnecessary to describe any
process of manufacture by which it may be obtained.
The following advantages are derived from the manufacture of aerated beverages
in the manner above described:-

page_text: 1. That in using as a restorative basis for aerated waters what chemistry has
separated as the active essential and useful principle common to tea, coffee, and
all other non-alcoholic restorative beverages, the use of all the hurtful constituents
of infusions of tea, coffee, &c., such as the tannic acid and essential oils, is avoided,
and the restorative principle or thein, which investigation has shown to be the
only agent for good,. is alone used.
2. That these non-medicinal substances are thus utilized as substitutes for
alcohol.
3. That aerated waters, having as their basis distilled water containing thëin,
may be kept for any length of time and will not deteriorate by keeping, whereas
this is not the case with ordinary vegetable infusions unmixed with alcohol.
4. That absolute purity is ensured by the use of distilled water.
5. That neither alcohol nor sugar are used as preservatives.
Having thus described the nature of my Invention, and the manner of performing
the saine, I would have it understood that I claim,—
The manufacture of aerated beverages by the combination of citrate of thein, or
thein or other salt of thein with water charged with carbonic acid gas and with
in addition, if desired, suitable sweetening or flavoring materials, as herein before
described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Lewis Shapter, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Twenty-first day of April, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and eighty one.