Coffee or Tea?

Something hit me a moment ago. Oh, I don't mean literally. But a realization dropped in unsolicited, about coffee culture and tea culture, and how different the two can be.

The parents drank coffee in the morning, water with meals, and we children had juice, milk, and water, with the occasional soda-pop treat. Not until my second year of college did I attempt to join with coffee, and then I had to force myself through the acclimation period. That's due to my own brand of perversity, however: in many things I am a sort of purist, and I had decided that, should I become a coffee drinker, I'd be a drinker of coffee unadulterated...so, black. Picking it up cold turkey was, as I remember, harder than dropping it the same way six years later, when I had added sugar and half-and-half. Another new experience in my college's routines was the tradition of Friday Tea, served at 4 o'clock. Although one could not envision Sophia Smith's first generation of matriculates in any other than proper tea dress for this afternoon refreshment, still as we modern women sat or slumped in jeans or even sweats straight from the gym, one aspect of the tea ritual remained: the genial beverage encouraged a spot of relaxation, interaction, and maybe even a sometime reflection, until the pots ran dry. We used the college china, which was a sturdy china, to be sure, but nevertheless it was a cup and saucer to handle, and a spoon to balance, and I do believe that was the magic of it all. One does not bounce up and roam about with a saucer and spoon, as one does with a mug.

Now, coffee was once the usurper of tea's cups, having begun, I think, during or after the American Revolution when drinking tea was considered anathema for the dedicated Patriot. And many a friendship and heart-to-heart talk has prospered over shared coffee at a cozy kitchen table, we know. But what has been done to coffee in the fast-food age, has completely reshaped its culture...at least in this country. Now, you can grab coffee on the run at specialty shops and use it like a drug as you pound through various phases of your day. This, many people do. Coffee has become the beverage to keep you going on the run, and the slow, after-dinner coffee as a digestive has all but disappeared.

I do not think they can do this to tea. I hope not. I admit right up front, that I have taken many an insulated cup of tea with me when necessary, but I also confess (with some relief!) that it never brings the satisfaction of a brewed morning cup savored at the table with morning reading, or that of a second cup poured after the first few hours of chores during a ten-minutes window while midday dinner finishes. The pleasure of drinking tea goes beyond the myriad of taste options to include the dainty efficiency of the tea strainer and the prettiness or grace of the tea pot. These things do not lend themselves to a frantic pace; thus, we learned to make iced tea and dispense it from plastic jugs on picnics.

Tea feels a bit civilized, but it need not be pretentious. Tea is comforting, where coffee is jarring.
I hear less and less of "having you over for coffee" nowadays, and more and more of "let's go out for coffee sometime." But if I were to invite you "to tea," you could expect that the table would be cleared and spread, there would be cups and saucers and spoons, and sweeteners and cream in their separate little pots and pitchers, and the burble of boiling kettle, the temptation of some little savories and a definite "sweet" to complement, and you'd want to settle in for a while, and you would know...that was expected and hoped.

Come, let's drink tea.