Coffee or tea? coffee fact - quote of the day

June 24, 8:40 AMCoffee ExaminerMary Ann Lien

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Coffee is the second most valuable commodity worldwide, second only to oil in dollars traded annually. It has long been viewed as America's beverage of choice, just as tea is associated with Great Britain and Asia. How did coffee come to take precedence this side of the Atlantic?

(n) factoid
(something resembling a fact; unverified (often invented) information that is given credibility because it appeared in print)
WordNet

Fact or factoid? It’s not always easy to tell, but here’s today’s installment of what they say:

Coffee is America’s favorite beverage with 54% of us consuming it regularly, to a tune of between 3-4 cups daily. This was not always the case. Most historians attribute America’s embrace of coffee to the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when angry colonists protesting oppressive taxation stormed the decks of three British tea ships and threw the entire cargo, all 342 chests totaling 45 tons of tea, into the harbor. Over the course of the next three years as America fought and won its independence from British rule, it became a patriotic gesture to shun the drinking of tea and imbibe coffee instead.

During the summer of 1774, John Adams wrote that when he asked an innkeeper, “Is it lawful…for a weary Traveller to refresh himself with a Dish of Tea, providing it has been honestly smuggled, or paid no Duties?,” the proprietress replied, “No sir…we have renounced all Tea in this Place. I can’t make tea…but [can] make you Coffee.
Steven Topik, Department of History, University of California, Irvine
Why Do Americans Drink Coffee: The Boston Tea Party or Brazilian Slavery?

It was not long before America was associated with coffee as a symbol of freedom in the eyes of the world, but while the newly formed nation quickly became the biggest importer of coffee, most of what was imported was re-exported to other countries, and tea and coffee consumption among Americans remained about equal until the mid- to late-19th century. Because of this, some scholars, Steven Topik among them, believe the true story to be a bit less romantic, and associates America’s relationship with coffee to be more linked with slavery than freedom. That, though, is a factoid for another day…

Quote of the Day

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
- Abraham Lincoln
Ellen’s Quotes

 

 

Photo:  Andreas Praefcke
Coffee pot and tea pot with red coral decoration, porcelain, produced in B?ezová (Pirkenhammer) between 1846 and 1857