Last spring, I studied abroad in London, where tea is all the rage. We’re not talking about herbal teas, we’re talking about the varieties of black tea. English breakfast tea and earl gray tea were the norms, but I could seek out green tea if I really tried.
Finding coffee was more of a problem.
There were, of course, little coffee shops on every corner; London is a metropolitan city after all. However, every morning when I woke up craving my morning cup of joe, I’d be out of luck. This was because my homestay where I resided for the three-month period had no mode of producing coffee in the home.
Although I’d already known that tea is a huge part of British culture, I was surprised to discover that coffee is a product that is not enjoyed in traditional British homes. As a coffee lover, this crushed me.
There is no replacement for the smell of coffee that fills up a kitchen, an entire home, and wakes up my olfactory system — a distinct quality that tea does not possess. There is no substitute for the homey feeling coffee carries with it; this is most likely due to the abundant memories I have of sitting down for late-night meals at diners with friends from high school, ordering huge plates of hash browns with sides of unlimited coffee.
Tea just doesn’t hold that same quality; you can’t order a tea at a diner and expect to get free refills. They give you a Lipton black tea bag and call it a day. There is a distinct difference between cheap, plain, black coffee (which is always great), and cheap, plain, black tea (which needs some extra tender love and care in the form of milk and honey to make it palatable).
And yes, there are undoubtedly tea shops where I’m sure you get unlimited refills on your refined choice of whichever tea you prefer. But I don’t want to spend $5 on fancy tea, or even coffee for that matter. I want to pay $1 for unlimited refills on my strong, black, IHOP coffee.
Anyway, I digress. There are more reasons than just coffee’s charm that make it far superior to tea.
One of those which cannot be overlooked is probably why most people drink coffee: caffeine. The buzz I get from just two sips of coffee is incomparably high compared to the buzz I would get from two full cups of strong tea.
Black tea, which contains a measly 14-70 mg of caffeine in an eight-ounce cup, cannot stand up to coffee’s impressive 95-200 mg of caffeine packed into the same size. If I’m needing a good wake up call, I call my good friend coffee; if I’m in need of a pick-me-up on a cold rainy day, I call my good friend coffee; if I’m craving the hyper jitter-attacks I know and love so well, I call my good friend coffee. I just can’t trust tea to be there for me in the same way.
Don’t get me wrong, it wouldn’t be completely unheard of to find me drinking a cup of tea once in awhile. When I have bad stomach aches, I resort to tea for the low acidity levels, and when I’m looking to have a lazy day in bed, I brew myself a cup of peppermint tea.
But tea will never be the love of my life the way coffee is. It just simply can’t compare.
Reach Opinion Editor Rebecca Gross at arts@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @becsgross
