The Iconoclast - New English Review

Thursday, 1 May 2008

Coffee Or Tea?

The Cultural Geography of Consumption

by Norman Berdichevsky

For almost two centuries, the coffee-tea dichotomy has been one of the firmest markers of the cultural divide between Britain and America. Many Americans/Britons can recall the pride felt as children when their parents allowed them their first cup of coffee/tea. This continues to be a right of passage into adult society. British and American folkways have diverged for the last two-and-a-half centuries and are a major source of humo(u)r on both sides of the Atlantic. Differences in speech, spelling, social graces, wit, political systems, hobbies, class attitudes, popular tastes in fashion, driving and road design, sports, and eating and drinking habits have all come to embody reciprocal stereotypes. America's successful revolution against the British Crown affected social mores and none more dramatically than in the switch from tea to coffee. The Boston Tea Party and its aftermath accomplished one of the few major changes in the popular taste for the two daily hot beverages which have become consumer staples the world over. more...

Posted on 7:41 AM by NER

Comments

1 May 2008
Mary Jackson

It certainly seems weird that anyone would drink coffee to calm down. Coffee is something you drink to wake yourself up.

I think of coffee as being like a brisk shower and tea as being like a long hot bath.

Iced tea is an abomination.

1 May 2008

holmegm
It certainly seems weird that anyone would drink coffee to calm down. Coffee is something you drink to wake yourself up.

It does have a calming effect on some folks, though. My wife, for one.

Perhaps it is similar to the use of stimulants to regulate hyperactive children?

1 May 2008

Hugh Fitzgerald

Coffee or Tea?

Rice or Pasta? Olive oil or butter? Butter or jam? Jam or Patum Peperium? Steak or Lobster? Mu Shi Pork, or Mu Shi Chicken? Mushrooms or Bamboo Shoots? Sushi or Sashimi? Franks or Burgers? Coke or Pepsi? Ciabatta or Bagel?

The Guelfs or the Ghibellines? The Red or the Black? The Blue or the Gray? The Federalists or the Jeffersonians? The Colorados or the Blancos? The Descamisados or the Sans-Culottes? The Liberals or Conservatives? The Democrats or Republicans? Obama or Hillary?

Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton? Leno or Letterman? Bix Beiderbecke or Bunny Berigan? Picasso or Matisse?

The English “Office” or the American “Office”? The Little-Enders or the Big-Enders? The Wave-Theorists, or the Particle-Theorists of Light? Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard? Umbria or Tuscany? Rent, or Buy?

Harvard or Yale? Exeter or Andover? Oxford or Cambridge? Macintosh or MS/DOS? Dickens or Thackeray? Shakespeare or Dante? Leonardo or Michelangelo? Dryden or Pope? Corneille or Racine? Ambrose Bierce or Bret Harte? Damon Runyon or Finley Peter Dunne? Benchley or Thurber?

The Wise Man or the Fool? The Blonde or the Brunette? The Prude or the Libertine? The Crossword, or Puns and Anagrams? Capablanca, or Kasparov?

Roundheads or Cavaliers? La Montagne ou La Gironde? Bolsheviks or Mensheviks? Clerics or Anti-clericals ? Syllabotonic or free verse? Keats or Shelley? Browning or Tennyson? Yeats or Frost? Georgia or Abkhazia? Tibet or China? China or Xinjiang?

Marie Boroff or Max Beloff? Jean Seznec or Jean Starobinski? Alexandre Kojève or Alexandre Koyré?

Dos Equis, or Kirin? Kirin or Tsingtao? Tsingtao or Dos Equis? Burgundy or Bordeaux? Barolo or Amarone? Beggers or Choosers? Debtors or Creditors? Eve or Lilith? Mars or Venus? Scylla or Charybdis? The Devil, or the Deep Blue Sea? David Copperfield, or Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?

All, or Nothing At All.

Decisions. Decisions.

1 May 2008
Mary Jackson

The English “Office” or the American “Office”?

You have to ask?

3 May 2008

del
Ted Weems Orchestra You're the Cream in My Coffee
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=b085U3yThzI&feature=related

Nat King Cole Tea for Two
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p7hbkQexqXs