Coffee Versus Tea – How Tea Drinkers Are Getting A Rough Deal

A quick heads up – this is going to be a rambling rant. Nothing more. Nothing less. Let’s start with some background.

I drink tea but not coffee. Never have liked the stuff. The problem is if I go to a cafe or restaurant and order tea I normally get a raw and expensive deal. I like most types of tea but my favourites are your standard English Breakfast or Ceylon as well as Darjeeling and Orange Pekoe.

I like my tea black, with two sugars and a squeeze of lime. Not lemon, lime. To me it’s a pretty straight forward order but if I order that in most establishments they stare back at me like I am deranged. Now let’s look at the coffee side of things.

Almost all coffee orders these days have become extremely complex – you know the type of thing e.g. a double mocha espresso blast skinny soy frappaccino with a dollop of goat curd cream in a tall venetian glass. If I ordered a Kopi Luwak everyone would nod thoughtfully that I am a well heeled afficianado of fine coffee even though the beans are collected from wild cat poo.

But no, I order a black english breakfast tea with a slice of lime and suddenly I’m been difficult.

And don’t get me started on cafes that don’t use real leaf tea but proudly dangle the ends of the tea bags from the pot to show you what a magnificent job they have done. Then there is the tea served on aeroplanes …. I could go on forever about how awful that is.

By the way, if I come to your house and you make me some tea, the rules change completely. Bung an old LanChoo tea bag you found under the fridge in a mug and that’ll do me just fine.