Revolutionary Coffee and Tea

This is a guest post by Samet Bilir. Learn more about how you can guest post for Daily Shot Of Coffee.

Both coffee and tea have great historical significance, having been banned, misunderstood, and championed at various times throughout the world. The most revolutionary period of these drinks’ pasts, however, may very well be that of the American Revolution, when coffee and tea became political symbols and agents of war. So, in honor of the (US) July 4th holiday, here’s a brief look at how coffee and tea helped change and create America.

Thirsty from the Very Beginning

English colonists in America brought with them the customs and fashions of “Mother England,” where tea was fast becoming the national beverage. As J. N. Pratt reports in The Tea Lover’s Treasury:

When the English took over New (Nieuw) Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1674 and renamed it New York, the colonists there were already drinking more tea than all of England at the time. A number of tea gardens were actually located in New York’s now-crowded lower East Side.

When Philadelphia was founded in 1682, the Quakers helped create a great market demand for tea, “the cups that cheer but do not inebriate.”
Trevelyan, an English historian, noted that tea was also popular in “the backwoods of America,” especially with women, and drunk twice a day by the American Indians.

America’s coffee pioneer is said to be Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, a French naval officer who crossed the Atlantic in 1720 or so with a stolen cutting of the coffee plant in Paris. After weathering storms, pirates, and jealous shipmates’ attempts to steal his treasure, de Clieu finally planted it in Martinique – and within 50 years, the island had over 18 million coffee plants, the “parents” of most of today’s Central and South American coffee.

Though coffee was being consumed in America before the Revolution, its popularity was second to that of tea. And then came the fight for independence…

“Coffee, Tea, or We?” – A Patriotic Decision

Things started heating up when England instituted a three-penny tax on tea  – specifically levied on the American colonists only (thus, the issue of “taxation without representation”), but the passing of the Tea Act of 1773 was the last straw. That Act had granted, in effect, a monopoly on tea to England’s “John Company” (a.k.a., Honorable East India Company) and presented a huge threat to business for American tea shippers, middle-men, and merchants. Beloved tea, a social drink, was now a part of a monumental political and commercial cause.

America Starts to Party

The most famous tea party in history is, of course, the Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773), during which three hundred and forty-two chests of the Company’s tea were dumped into the Atlantic by a group of men disguised as Indians. Colonial merchant John Rowe had perhaps sparked the act with the not-so hypothetical question, “Who knows how tea will mix with salt water?” Other similar celebrations (acts of protests or demonstrations) were held in Greenwich, Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, Annapolis, and Edenton, though not all of them were as dramatic.

Abstaining from tea

On his way to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that when he asked at a tavern if tea was lawful to drink, the landlord’s daughter replied, “No sir! We have renounced tea under this roof. But, if you desire it, I will make you some coffee.” The colonists had given up tea in the name of liberty. And coffee became the champion of the soon-to-be independent republic.

As they say, the rest is history

Today, Americans drink more coffee than any other country in the world, making it a sort of national beverage. Tea consumption is on the rise again as well, fueled perhaps by the increasing popularity of specialty drinks… for what affects tea has tended to affect coffee, and vice versa. Though the political symbolism of these beverages has faded, our national interest in them has only grown stronger.

When you’re drinking your iced/hot tea or coffee on patriotic days or whenever, you’ll be drinking something that has been fought over and worshiped since America’s beginning.

Hope you had a safe and refreshing holiday.

Samet Bilir writes about antiques and collectibles, book reviews, holiday shopping and a lot of other things, such as Civil War relics. To read more articles from him click this link.

Category: Coffee Information