Coffee or Tea?
“Sir, coffee or tea?”
The mind enters a maze of preferential analysis — starting with the image of tea with a mild colour and then coffee with the typical froth. For some, it is a simple choice. For me, it depends on the place and the price. I ask myself the same question when making coffee or tea every morning. For instance, the coffee I am drinking now came into existence after a torrid decision making.
“With milk or black?”
Again, for some, it’s too simple. For me, mostly black.
These two questions are so common that we have stopped getting ourselves ripped by it and mostly go by an impulse and we do not even think about it later. We face it everyday and our lives revolve around either of these two beverages.
I would go on a date to a breakfast cafe and while my counterpart would be having cold coffee, I would enjoy a steaming glass of Earl Grey. Sometimes, two. Especially, if it’s winter, a hot cup of clear black tea makes me gleeful and warm. However, at work, I take the coffee only because the tea is horrendous.
This makes me quite unromantic as the phrase “Wanna get some coffee?” usually comes out as “Wanna have some tea?” and well, the first answer is “No” just because I mentioned tea. Also, the cheesy froth tales are off the table. Secondly, tea is either pictured at a tapri or at home. Both of these imaginations normally deter a person from giving a shy yes as an answer.
Bertie Wooster once tried to make tea without heating the water in a kettle and when he did so, he didn’t fare well. Jeeves could make tea on the fly. The case here is, tea can be brewed as easily as coffee. Or even simpler, is the ease of tea bags that makes this beverage such an accessible one. Yet, coffee wins the day with caffeine.
For some reason, coffee acquired the more romantic side of things while tea retired to the Queen’s palace. Coffee houses became the hangout places of the teens in love and soon franchises of CCD and Starbucks were ripping people off for their freshly brewed coffee. So much so, a part of the middle class society of India lost their heads when Starbucks came to India.
“I can have my name on my coffee glass so I shall pay Rs. 250 for a cup of coffee.”
I do admit, the coffee is good. But the price? How steeped are we into consumerism? With the coming of CCD, coffee took a turn in India. The smell of freshly ground coffee beans in a yellow lit cafe was really alluring. I even wrote a poem on it once! The couch, the easy chair, the laptop plugin, it was such a nice place. That propelled into Starbucks, possibly the biggest name in coffee outlets. The fanciness climbed a ladder but people were wilfully paying baffling amounts for a cup of coffee and a sandwich. This is not a limelight on the people who are spending, but rather on the pricing of products. We live in a generation where self-worth and personal image is formed by the coffee we drink.
Whether the market has caused this or our microeconomic evolution has facilitated the breeding grounds for the market is a chicken and egg story.
Tea is a varied affair. Expensive tea costs a lot and is usually purchased from proper stores by select customers. CCD or Starbucks provide tea and I like that. But:
“Dude, are you going to pay so much for tea? Have coffee instead!”
Tea loses. Often.
However, when the quintessential images of travelling on a road on a cool day, the usual imagery is of tea which is made in milk and the tea maker in all flamboyancy pours the drink into a glass and hands it over. Coffee cannot rival that. Here, tea is a poor man’s drink. The reason I think is that tea can be available at a cheaper rate. But the most expensive tea is much costlier than coffee. So in either ends of the society, tea is the paramount drink.
As one can’t imagine a writer without a cup of black coffee by his side, one cannot also imagine a grandfather reading a newspaper without tea.
They have their places. And it’s an easier choice at the right place.
But if you walk in for an interview and if you can’t answer the question “Coffee or Tea?” in a split second, you’re pretty much done.
It’s an age old conundrum and our progeny shall have a hard time as well. It’s like choosing Federer or Nadal, fiction or non-fiction, Ferrari or Lamborghini. It’s mayhem. The pinnacle of success and focus shall be the time taken to choose between tea or coffee.
The one who knows his drink, is the one who knows his way.
— Tea is an indulgence. Coffee is a requirement.
