Food History: Coffee and Tea

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The United Kingdom loves its tea, but if Oliver Cromwell’s head hadn’t ended up on a spike, coffee might have remained the country’s most prevalent pick-me-up. While countless half-completed screenplays have been penned in the world’s 30,000-plus Starbucks locations, café culture might not have spread throughout the globe if Islam permitted its adherents to consume alcohol. Collectively, coffee and tea have been credited as catalysts for everything from the Enlightenment to the Opium Wars. Tracing the fascinating history of these caffeinated beverages touches on brain chemistry, the emergence of global capitalism, and deep-seated cultural beliefs, both edifying and destructive.

Hi, I’m Justin Dodd. Welcome to Food History. The origins of both tea and coffee have been mythologized. According to a Chinese legend, tea was discovered by Emperor Shennong around the year 2732 BCE. As the story goes, the emperor was boiling water beneath a tree when the wind blew some leaves into his pot. The plant infused into the liquid, and when he sipped it, he was filled with a pleasant, energizing sensation. The tree from the story was Camellia sinensis, a plant native to the borderlands of northern Myanmar in southwest China. All true teas come from this plant, which is why herbal teas like chamomile should technically be referred to as infusions or tisanes.

Coffee doesn’t come from leaves and technically doesn’t come from beans either. The source of all things coffee is the fruit that grows on the tropical Coffea plant. These so-called coffee cherries are small and red with a hard, stone-like core. The bean we use to brew the beverage is actually the fruit seed, and there are usually two inside each cherry. Legend attributes the adoption of coffee into human diets to a goat herder named Kaldi around 850 CE. Sometimes the story is said to take place in what is today Ethiopia, other times Yemen. The gist of it is that Kaldi’s goats started dancing one day after nibbling berries from a coffee shrub. Kaldi tried the fruit for himself and experienced the plant’s stimulating effects. Thrilled about his discovery, he brought the coffee cherries to a nearby monastery or mosque. The people there didn’t share his excitement; after calling the fruit the devil’s work, they tossed the berries into the fire. As the coffee beans roasted, the skeptics were intoxicated by the scent and regretted their decision. They crushed the beans and added the grounds to hot water to preserve them, thus brewing the world’s first pot of coffee. After giving it a try, they decided that the drink’s ability to keep them awake for hours of prayer canceled out any negative properties it may have had.

It’s a charming story, but no version of it has ever been verified by historians. When coffee writer Ken Davids performed an unscientific experiment to gauge Yemeni goats’ interest in coffee cherries, he found they preferred dried grass and the leaves of the local cat tree. Davids noted that he later saw goats in Ethiopia happily eating coffee tree leaves, but the lack of contemporary accounts of Kaldi’s exploits casts the story into serious doubt. Still, the myth, if it is a myth, points to a real part of coffee’s history. Coffea arabica, the most popular species of the plant, probably did originate in the plateaus of Ethiopia, where it continues to grow in the wild today. The other most popular species of coffee is Coffea canephora, often called robusta. It’s cheaper to produce and contains significantly more caffeine than arabica. That high caffeine level might actually help ward off pests.

For many years, the western coffee world considered robusta an inferior product, which is why you’re much more likely to see a higher-end coffee bag brag about containing 100% arabica beans. Industry opinions may be evolving, though, as more professionals come to recognize the two species as distinct but not necessarily better or worse. Robusta, for its part, has long been enjoyed in some of the countries in which it’s grown, like Indonesia and Vietnam, where its tendency to taste more bitter might have helped give rise to delicious iced coffee drinks sweetened with condensed milk called café sua da.

Making coffee on a large scale is complicated by the quirks of the Coffea plant. It ripens unevenly, and the arabica plant especially grows on steep terrain, so harvesting coffee cherries at peak ripeness often has to be done by hand. That’s why it’s not unusual for coffee farmers supplying some of the world’s largest corporations to earn less than three dollars a day. To stay competitive, these farmers often have to sell their coffee cherries at a price that doesn’t match the labor required to cultivate them. It’s a bit beyond our historical lens to fully dive into this topic, but if you’re interested, you should definitely look into how your coffee is sourced and how the farmers are compensated because much of the product’s value has historically been seen as rising later in the production process. Those farmers often don’t have much leverage to negotiate.

Once coffee cherries are harvested, they get processed and dried to remove excess moisture. At some point, it varies depending on the processing technique being employed, the fruit is removed, and then the beans get roasted. Somewhere around 400 degrees Fahrenheit, they start releasing an oil called caffeiol, which is partly responsible for the rich taste and fragrance we associate with coffee. Coffee also develops its deep brown color during the roasting process. Roasted beans are ready to be ground, and ground beans are ready to be brewed into a cup of coffee, espresso, or whatever your preferred coffee beverage is.

Green tea, white tea, oolong, and black tea all come from the leaves of the same tea plant, Camellia sinensis, but the way those leaves are prepared can create distinct beverages. The leaves that become black tea are crushed before they’re dried, which exposes the chemicals in their cells to increase levels of oxygen during oxidation. The chlorophyll that makes plants green degrades into theophytins and pheophorbides, which gives tea leaves a black or brown appearance. Other compounds like lipids, amino acids, and carotenoids break down as well, changing the flavor profile of the plant. Tea manufacturers know when to stop the oxidation process to achieve the flavor and aroma they want. To make green tea, they stop oxidation early; oolong is semi-oxidized, and black tea is considered fully oxidized, which gives it its bold flavor. White tea is made from young Camellia sinensis leaves that haven’t fully opened and are oxidized the least of the four main varieties you’re likely to encounter at the local market.

Given their proximity, it may not have taken long for coffee to get from Ethiopia to Yemen. Like the monks from the legend, Sufis in Yemen really did use coffee to get through nighttime prayers and devotions. The beverage quickly spread throughout the Muslim world, playing a social role as well as a spiritual one. When coffeehouses emerged in the Islamic world during the 16th century, these businesses became community hubs where men from all levels of society could come together and discuss important topics. In a culture where alcohol was banned, coffeehouses functioned as community taverns. The drink was even called “qahwa,” which is sometimes said to be an Arabic word for wine.

Like coffee, tea was seen as something sacred following its discovery in China. Buddhist monks were drawn to it for the same reason that Sufis drank coffee; it kept the mind clear and alert for extended meditation sessions. Just the process of pouring water and brewing tea became a spiritual meditative act for followers of Buddhism. Both coffee and tea have caffeine to thank for their popularity with religious types and anyone else who’s ever needed a pick-me-up. The natural stimulant is found in both the Coffea plant and Camellia sinensis, and thanks to coffee and tea’s global success, it’s the most widely consumed drug on Earth. Though it feels like it wakes you up, it would be more accurate to say that caffeine stops you from getting sleepy. The chemical is similar in size and shape to an inhibitory neurotransmitter called adenosine. Throughout the day, adenosine builds up in the brain, making you feel tired. When you drink coffee or tea, caffeine settles into the receptors shaped to fit adenosine, blocking the neurotransmitter from getting in and bringing down your energy. A standard 8-ounce cup of coffee contains around 95 milligrams of caffeine, which is more than double the 47 milligrams of caffeine in an average cup of black tea.

The word “tea” comes from the Chinese word “tê,” which means “bitter vegetable.” “Tê” also gives us the Mandarin word “cha,” which first appeared in print circa 760 CE when a Chinese scholar left out a cross stroke when writing out the character for tea. Today, the word for the drink used in almost every language derives from one of these two terms. In general, whether a western country says it drinks tea or “cha” today depends on whether it traded with China by sea or land centuries ago. The Dutch East India Company imported its tea from an area of China where they called it something like “tay.” From there, it traveled to western European countries like France, England, and Germany, but not Portugal; they had their own trading links with China in a region where people said “cha.” That’s what the Portuguese call the drink to this day. Central Asia also picked up “cha.” According to University of Pennsylvania professor Victor H. Mair, it seems that “cha” got adopted by the Mongol Empire, which used Persian as a common language. In Persian, “cha” got an alternate form, “chai,” which spread throughout much of Asia. Today, “chai” and “tea” are two words for the same beverage, so when you ask your barista for a “chai tea,” you’re technically repeating yourself. The spiced drink you’re looking for actually corresponds pretty closely to a beverage called “masala chai” in India.

Coffee had some hurdles to overcome before it would be embraced in Europe because it was viewed as a Muslim product. Xenophobic Christians branded it as the bitter invention of Satan. Catholics called upon Pope Clement VIII to condemn it officially, but he was said to have had a surprising reaction when he took his first sip. He reportedly called the devil’s drink delicious and proposed “baptizing” the beverage. That story is almost certainly a myth, but it reflects real concerns about coffee consumption at the time in Europe. Still, despite those misgivings, the drink’s popularity skyrocketed. Unlike beer, which had been the continent’s morning beverage of choice, coffee boosted energy levels and sharpened the mind. Drinking coffee quickly became a social activity as well as a way to start the day. The coffeehouses that originated in the Ottoman Empire began popping up across Europe. By the mid-1600s, there were 300 such establishments in London alone. Much like today, coffeehouses were places where creative minds went to find inspiration. Some were known as “penny universities,” establishments where patrons paid a penny for their coffee and had access to free reading material and intellectual conversation. As a bonus, some argue that the cross-disciplinary exchange of ideas facilitated by coffeehouses helped ferment the intellectual revolution known as the Enlightenment.

In the world of caffeine, Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Beeler discuss how a coffee club in Oxford counted amongst its founding participants Edmund Halley, Isaac Newton, and Hans Sloane, whose personal collection formed the basis of the British Museum. According to Weinberg and Beeler, the three men are said to have dissected a dolphin on a table in the coffeehouse before an amazed audience, which for the record is generally frowned upon in coffeehouses today. Apparently, economist Adam Smith worked on “The Wealth of Nations” in a coffeehouse, meaning the beverage didn’t just affect the global economy; it arguably contributed to one of the most influential books in the history of economics itself. Sometimes the buildings themselves even made history. The original London Stock Exchange started at a coffeehouse.

Vienna also saw the rise of a vibrant coffee culture around this time. Legend has it that when the Turks tried to take the Austrian capital in the Siege of Vienna in 1683, they left behind a bag of coffee beans. That bag was the seed that sprouted the city’s centuries-long love affair with the beverage. Today, Viennese coffeehouses are thought of as extensions of people’s homes. Guests are encouraged to take their time and drink in the atmosphere alongside expertly made brews.

I personally have not experienced this rich culture for myself, but I did see the movie “Before Sunrise,” so you know, kind of the same thing. Today, tea is as British as William Shakespeare or Mr. Bean, but it wasn’t accepted into the culture immediately. By the time it arrived in Europe in the 17th century, coffee had made significant inroads among the continent’s caffeine addicts and connoisseurs. Portugal was much quicker to embrace tea; the country had a direct trade route to China via its colony in Macau, and it was viewed as a luxury by the Portuguese upper class, including Princess Catherine of Braganza. Her future husband, Charles II, was busy restoring the Stuart monarchy in England after five years of Oliver Cromwell’s rule as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. Two years after ascending to the British throne in 1660, Charles married Catherine in a politically advantageous arrangement. When Catherine came to England, she brought her fondness for loose-leaf tea with her. She didn’t introduce the beverage to the country, as is sometimes claimed, but the new queen was a trendsetter. Drinking tea quickly became an indicator of luxury and class.

It would be more than a century before tea became the drink of the people. Though royals and nobles could afford the stuff, high taxes made it prohibitively expensive for the majority of the population. Soon, an illegal smuggling market grew to meet the nationwide demand for cheap tea. William Pitt the Younger put an end to this when he reduced the tea tax from 119% to 12.5% upon becoming Prime Minister in 1783. Britain’s legal tea market exploded, and tea smuggling was no longer lucrative in Britain, at least.

Hold that thought for later. Camellia sinensis wasn’t being grown in England, which meant all the tea consumed by the country had to be imported from China. The British and Dutch East India Companies were already trading goods with China for silks and spices, so they were able to transport massive amounts of tea at a profitable rate. But while China had plenty of goods that Britain wanted, the British didn’t have much to offer in return. To rectify this, British merchants began smuggling opium into China to make illegal trades. The tactic worked for a while, at least. By 1839, opium was funding all of Britain’s tea. The drug was so popular in China that millions became addicted to it, which predictably angered the country’s leaders. This led to the Opium Wars, which were fought between 1839 and 1842 and again between 1856 and 1860. The Opium Wars were hardly the only time the tea trade had massive ramifications for geopolitics. May I direct your attention to Boston Harbor in 1773? Six years earlier, Britain had passed the Townsend Acts, which taxed colonists for essential goods like tea, paper, and glass. Most of those taxes were repealed soon after, but the tea tax remained intact. In 1773, the Tea Act gave a tax break to the East India Company on tea sent to America. This was meant to help the fortunes of the struggling company and would have brought the price of tea down for colonists.

So what’s the problem? Well, much of the tea being consumed in the colonies at the time was actually being smuggled in. Some of the founding fathers, including John Hancock, were allegedly merchants smuggling Dutch tea into the colonies. The Tea Act would have undercut this illegal activity and perhaps habituated Americans into accepting British taxation. As historian Benjamin Carp laid out the argument, “You’re going to seduce Americans into being obedient colonists by making the price lower.” A political group called the Sons of Liberty took action; they boarded ships dressed as American Indians and dumped 340 chests of tea into the harbor. The destroyed goods were worth 9,659 pounds, or roughly 1.7 million dollars today. This marked the colony’s most overt act of defiance yet. In response, England passed the so-called Intolerable Acts, which eventually helped escalate tensions with the colonies into full-on war.

You might read that the revolution irrevocably turned America away from tea and towards coffee. It’s not that simple, but there is an element of truth there. For a number of years, tea was seen as unpatriotic in the colonies. John Adams noted in a 1774 letter to his wife Abigail that he was now drinking coffee, as he said, “Tea must be universally renounced. I must be weaned, and the sooner the better.” But America got over its aversion to tea pretty quickly after achieving independence. Adams himself started drinking it again, and America began trading tea with China, producing great wealth for many traders. In fact, it took a number of factors to convert Americans from leaves to beans. According to most food historians, the War of 1812 led to a rise in tea prices in the States. Around the same time, Brazil, located not so far from North America, was becoming a coffee powerhouse. Brazil built a massive industry largely on the backs of enslaved Africans. In 1800, the country reportedly exported 1,720 pounds of coffee. By 1820, that figure was nearly 13 million pounds, and by 1830, it was 64 million. Increased immigration to the U.S. from coffee-drinking countries, as opposed to tea-loving England, may have also helped shift national tastes. But the primary factor in our caffeinated conversion was probably the cost advantage of Brazilian coffee. By the mid-19th century, coffee’s popularity eclipsed tea here in the States.

Of course, there are many Americans today who love tea, and an increasing number of Brits enjoy coffee, but those old inclinations have proven surprisingly durable. The cultural implications of the two drinks can go beyond the simple coffee-tea dichotomy. In Britain, the way one takes their cup is said to correlate with social status. Historically, commoners drank the strongest brews, while the aristocrats enjoyed weaker but better-tasting tea. The so-called “builder’s tea” of the British working class was so bitter that it was often sweetened with sugar. That’s why, as anthropologist Kate Fox said, taking sugar in your tea is regarded by many as an infallible lower-class indicator. The weak tea poured in upper-crust tea rooms was perfectly palatable on its own, which is how unsweetened tea gained its fancy reputation. It’s roughly analogous to the difference between a single-source cup of black arabica and a regular coffee here in New York City, which is generally made with deli-quality java and a healthy dose of milk and sugar.

Tea and coffee have been pitted against each other throughout history, but their similarities may be greater than their differences. No matter what you drink at home, your loyalties may go out the window when you’re jet-lagged in a foreign country craving a hit of the