Category: Tea History

• The Tea vs. Coffee War

  The Tea vs. Coffee War was the belief that pro-coffee interests in the United States spread cultural and pseudo-medical rumors to weaken tea’s status, including the claim that tea caused lethargy, weakness, melancholy, or an “Asian-style” passivity alien to American vigor. The theory drew on a long historical struggle over the symbolic meaning of both drinks. Tea in America had been politically burdened since the Revolutionary era, while coffee grew into a patriotic and eventually dominant national beverage. At the same time, tea really was subject to repeated medical and moral criticism in the nineteenth century, including claims that it caused weakness and melancholy. The conspiracy version transformed these dispersed anxieties into a coordinated anti-tea campaign by a rising coffee lobby.