Cold water was probably less refreshing for early humans due to most cold water likely only being available during colder weather.
You never actually drank from a natural spring, have you?
My kitchen tap doesn't carry that flavour
Depending on the aquifer the water temperature at the spring can be really cold, even in the warmest days.
This is probably why cold water taste so good. It's natural selection.
There is so many diseases carried in water so there is no doubt that people doing extra effort to get that nice crispy water from the spring will survive longer that people getting warm water from the nearest water body.
Have you never been in a natural body of water in the summer? Lakes and rivers are pretty cold, even in the hotter months.
Icy water yes. But cold water was available, the whole reason people find cold water refreshing is because running water/spring water etc are cold and more likely to be safe to drink. While stagnant water were more likely to be warm and have more bacteria, making it lot less safe.
Early humans already had mountain streams, which are refreshing as fuck in summer (or year round for the tropics, or winter for south africa). And Africa is actually pretty mountainous, it's kind of an issue for infrastructure development.
Water in streams, lakes, rivers, and springs is pretty much always a lot cooler than the air. Unless it's a very small pond or a puddle, water is pretty cool, especially if you go deeper than just the surface to take your water.
30°C air is hot as fuck, 30°C water is a perfect cold shower.
Not necessarily? Icy water would have been rare, but even in the summer water from a stream or a lake is colder than the air, which is enough to make it refreshing. And well water can be very cold.
hot water is a relatively modern luxury. you probably have a living ancestor that remembers not growing up with easy, or any, access to hot water, just hurtfully cold, refreshing water.
I feel like most natural spring water is pretty cool. They didn't have refrigeration though, so this might be true for icy cold water?
Yeah, I bet they wished they had shade
The reason you find cold water refreshing is because of early humans.
You might only have ice-cold water during the spring if you're near a river that just flowed down from the mountains but even most well water is going to be much cooler than surface temperatures.
Have you never been in a river in the spring?
poor ragebait
Cold water is easy to heat if you know how to make fire. Most early humans probably knew how to make fire. Hot water, however, is difficult to cool without refrigeration.
Spring and well water is often cool. I don’t know about the water that comes down from the mountains. Does it retain it’s coolness when the snow melts and runs down into the valley?
Yes, it does. Fresh mountain spring water is very cool and refreshing. Some of it even runs down from glaciers and is nearly ice cold.
Hot water is pretty easy to cool. Just leave it in a vessel in a cool place and come back later.