Tea and coffee are more than just drinks—they’re rituals, traditions, and lifelines for millions around the world. These two beverages have shaped cultures, fueled revolutions, and become symbols of comfort and energy in our daily lives. From the lush tea plantations of Asia to the aromatic coffeehouses of Europe, their influence stretches across continents and centuries.
In this article, 50 Strong Facts About Tea and Coffee, we’ll take you on a journey through the rich history, intriguing science, and fascinating trivia surrounding these iconic beverages. Whether you’re a coffee connoisseur or a tea enthusiast, these facts will deepen your appreciation for the drinks that keep the world running. So, pour yourself a cup, and let’s explore!
1 TV Breaks and Power Surges
TV pickups occur in the United Kingdom when millions of people simultaneously turn on electric kettles to brew tea or coffee during breaks in popular television programs, causing a surge in electricity demand. To handle this spike, the UK has a power station built inside a mountain, specifically designed to manage the increased power load during these times.
2. John Sylvan, one of the co-creators of Keurig machines, experienced caffeine poisoning in 1995 due to his habit of consuming 30 to 40 cups of coffee daily.
3. Drinking 4 liters of Earl Grey tea per day can cause a condition known as Earl Grey tea intoxication, leading to severe muscle cramps and blurred vision. However, reducing the intake to 1-2 liters eliminates these symptoms.
4. Most coffee creamers consist primarily of water, oil, and sugar, with no actual milk or cream. Some brands include casein, which is a milk-derived ingredient.
5. In the 1970s, East Germany faced a coffee shortage and turned to Vietnam for its supply. East Germany invested tens of millions of dollars in Vietnam in exchange for half of its coffee harvests over 20 years. However, by the first harvest in 1990, East Germany had already dissolved.
6 Coffee: Satan’s Bitter Invention?
When coffee first arrived in Europe during the 17th century, some people viewed it with suspicion, calling it the “bitter invention of Satan.” In 1615, the clergy in Venice sought Pope Clement VIII’s intervention. After trying the beverage, he found it delightful and granted it papal approval.
7. Tea ranks as the most popular drink in the world, second only to plain water. Globally, people consume more tea than all other manufactured beverages combined, including coffee, soda, and alcohol.
8. In 1746, a Swedish king attempted to prove coffee’s unhealthiness by ordering one man to drink large amounts of coffee and his identical twin to consume the same amount of tea daily for life. Ironically, both twins outlived the doctors conducting the experiment and the king himself.
9. Arizona Iced Tea has retained its 99¢ retail price since 1992.
10. Coffee stimulates bowel movements because caffeine triggers contractions in the colon and intestinal muscles.
11 Coffee’s Role in Fighting Gout
Consuming coffee in moderation can help lower uric acid buildup in the body and prevent gout, a condition historically known as the “disease of kings and the wealthy.”
12. In the 1800s, the British actively pushed addictive opium onto the Chinese population to balance a trade deficit. At the time, China only traded silver for tea and silk, which left the British struggling financially. Their solution was to sell opium, and unfortunately, it worked.
13. Nearly the entire world uses one of two terms to refer to tea, both derived from Chinese words: “te” (used in languages like Spanish and English) and “cha” (used in languages like Hindi and Russian). Where tea arrived overland, the term “cha” spread, while “te” spread in areas where tea arrived by sea.
14. After the Boston Tea Party, many Americans switched to drinking coffee during the Revolutionary War because consuming tea was seen as unpatriotic.
15. When coffee arrived in Europe from Arabia, it fueled the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment. In its early days, the Royal Society of London held meetings in a coffee shop instead of a pub.
16 Nordic Countries’ Coffee Obsession
Italy, France, and Brazil do not rank among the top ten highest consumers of coffee. The Nordic countries dominate global coffee consumption, with all of them appearing in the top ten. Finland, the world’s highest coffee consumer, drinks more than twice as much coffee annually as Italy.
17. Researchers have discovered that people who drank at least two cups of tea per day had a 9-13% lower risk of death compared to non-tea drinkers.
18. Southern sweet tea originally symbolized wealth, as tea, ice, and sugar were all extremely expensive during its early popularity.
19. In 2022, a personal trainer in Wales named Tom Mansfield accidentally overdosed on caffeine after miscalculating the amount of powder he needed on kitchen scales. He consumed the equivalent of 200 cups of coffee in one cup.
20. Before losing the $3 million settlement to a woman who suffered third-degree burns from spilled coffee, McDonald’s had received over 700 reports of similar injuries from other incidents.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Haiti’s Coffee Support for Greece
The first country to recognize Greek independence was not a Western power but Haiti, which allegedly sent 25 tons of coffee beans to finance the Greek rebellion.
22. Voltaire reportedly drank up to 40 cups of coffee a day at the Café Procope in Paris, where he enjoyed his coffee mixed with chocolate.
23. In 2012, Dunkin’ Donuts launched an innovative ad campaign in Seoul, Korea, where scent spray devices installed on buses released a coffee aroma whenever the Dunkin’ Donuts radio jingle played. This campaign reached over 350,000 people and increased sales near bus stops by 29%.
24. Both George Washington and Benjamin Franklin disagreed with the Boston Tea Party. Franklin even offered to repay the British for the destruction of the tea.
25. Although the 2nd Earl of Grey abolished slavery and reformed child labor laws in England during his political leadership, he remains most famous for introducing the beloved tea blend that bears his name.
RE: Fact #50 (Chicory: A Coffee Substitute) – Mischkaffee, that East German coffee substitute, had tons of chicory in it. I’ve read that people mostly drank it because coffee was hard to find, not because it tasted great.
RE: Fact #15 (Coffee and the Enlightenment) – Crazy how often people used to be hammered—a few sober geniuses taking a break changed everything.
RE: Fact #24 (Founding Fathers Opposed Tea Party) – Before the Continental Congress, most of the Founding Fathers weren’t keen on independence. Only a small, radical group really wanted it. Even John Adams was against the Boston Tea Party.
RE: Fact #9 (Arizona Iced Tea’s 99¢ Legacy) – High school students everywhere think they’re awesome.
RE: Fact #39 (Japanese Word for ‘Tea Color’) – The color orange? It’s named after the fruit, not those places in Western Europe. The whole “orange place/orange color” thing is pretty new, actually.
We used to call it “yellow-red,” which is way more descriptive, and we still use that kind of naming for other colors. The orange fruit itself comes from the Sanskrit word “naranga”—the “N” got lost in some languages, maybe because of how words change in speech or because of those European places already called “Orange.”
RE: Fact #50 (Chicory: A Coffee Substitute) – I once had this breakfast bar that totally tasted like coffee—turns out, it was made with chicory root.
It’s also used to make things sweeter. I learned the hard way – after my face blew up from eating a KIND bar – that if you’re allergic to ragweed, you gotta watch out for chicory root.
RE: Fact #33 (Coffee’s Role in the Civil War) – I read this guy’s story about being homeless during the Depression. You’d think food and a place to sleep would be his main concerns, but he went to way more trouble to get coffee, sugar, and milk.
Honestly, sugar and milk are lifesavers when you’re really hungry. We take sugar for granted now, but when you’re starving, energy is everything. Sugar’s full of carbs, which means energy. It’s actually more important than healthy food when you’re starving. That’s why wild animals go crazy for sugary stuff and ignore the healthy options. It’s also why, in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” that poor kid drowns his food in syrup during the Depression – the sugar was what he needed most.
RE: Fact #2 (Keurig Creator’s Caffeine Overdose) – Wow, that’s seriously addictive.
Seriously, I barely drink any coffee—a small cup’s enough for me. I’m always shocked seeing my coworkers go through two or more huge cups at work. Thirty cups? Whoa.
Seriously, it’s not the caffeine, it’s my bladder! No way I could drink that much early in the day and get anything done.
RE: Fact #35 (Espresso vs. Regular Coffee) – That seems pretty obvious, it’s got a ton of caffeine packed in there.
RE: Fact #48 (Frederick’s Coffee Prohibition) – Coffee and beer are a surprisingly great combo.
Alcohol, beer, coffee – that’s the usual lineup.
RE: Fact #17 (Tea Drinkers Live Longer) – That’s total crap; everyone’s gonna die someday.
Two cups of tea a day could lower your risk of dying by 9% to 13%.
RE: Fact #30 (The Science of Coffee Naps) – Instead of coffee and a nap, how about a week-long bender on Jack Daniels?
Two drinks and you’re out for the count.
RE: Fact #35 (Espresso vs. Regular Coffee) – That’s why I get a quad espresso – gotta be prepared for anything.
I bet their home base is the toilet.
RE: Fact #16 (Nordic Countries’ Coffee Obsession) – Finland eats 26.45 pounds of it per person, but Italy only eats 13.
So, I guess that settles that. I thought Finns might be bigger than Italians, but they’re definitely not double the size.
RE: Fact #20 (McDonald’s Coffee Burn Lawsuit) – Hot Coffee’s a great documentary about this case, and it also talks about tort reform. It’s free on Tubi – definitely worth a watch!
RE: Fact #31 (Boston Women’s Coffee Revolt) – That Boston coffee party that not many people went to.
RE: Fact #10 (Coffee and Bowel Movements) – So, it’s not quite that simple. Caffeine might play a part, but studies suggest it’s mostly due to a chemical made when coffee beans are roasted, 4-caffeoyl-1,5-quinide. A tiny amount of coffee—just one-fifth of a cup—has a strong effect opposing opioids. Opioids cause constipation, so their opposites do the opposite, even more than stimulants, which can go either way. Given how little 4-caffeoyl-1,5-quinide it takes, it probably also affects how coffee makes you feel, and why some people get anxious from it. Decaf coffee still loosens you up, which fits perfectly since this stuff isn’t removed when they decaffeinate.
RE: Fact #24 (Founding Fathers Opposed Tea Party) – Turns out, the usual story about why they tossed the tea overboard isn’t quite right. Most folks think it was just about taxes, but actually, the British government lowered taxes on their own tea, undercutting the colonists’ super profitable smuggled Dutch tea business. That’s the real reason for the tea party.
I looked into it after seeing that post, and some pretty important stuff was missing. Turns out, they replaced the lost tax money with a new tax on the colonists—the first direct tax from the crown. Colonists weren’t happy about being taxed without a say in the matter. It looks like it was less about the money and more about British control and that whole “no taxation without representation” thing.
RE: Fact #9 (Arizona Iced Tea’s 99¢ Legacy) – My school sells them for two fifty.
Grab some from a local shop and sell them at school for a buck fifty.
RE: Fact #5 (East Germany’s Coffee Gamble) – Vietnam was already growing coffee, but East Germany really boosted their production. They went from a small player to the world’s second biggest coffee producer, expanding their farms from 600 to 8,600 hectares.
RE: Fact #46 (Tea for British Troop Morale) – Depriving the British of their tea? That’s never gone well, historically speaking.
I really respect how they get straight to the point when it’s 5 o’clock.
RE: Fact #24 (Founding Fathers Opposed Tea Party) – Historians say the Boston Tea Party rubbed a lot of American patriots the wrong way because it was an attack on private property. Washington himself wasn’t happy about it – he made it plain he didn’t approve of trashing all that tea. Franklin even offered to cover the East India Company’s losses! And get this, Adams – who most people think was one of the organizers – never fessed up.
RE: Fact #26 (Teasmade: Tea Alarm Clock) – I just learned that most people have never heard of a teasmade.
I’d never heard of it until I saw Tom Scott use it in one of his YouTube videos.
RE: Fact #19 (Caffeine Overdose in Wales) – Mansfield’s autopsy showed a crazy high caffeine level in his blood – 392 milligrams per liter! That’s way more than the 2-4 milligrams you’d find after a regular cup of coffee. Considering an adult has around 5 liters of blood, that means nearly two grams of caffeine got into his system.
RE: Fact #43 (Accidental Invention of Tea Bags) – Huh, I figured they’d be older.
RE: Fact #28 (Pentagon’s Coffee Spill Research) – We think some stuff is dumb because the fact’s unclear. They’d totally throw money at physics and human potential, though.
The paper’s got a ton of math in it, it’s really thorough. Plus, it was funded by a DARPA Young Faculty Award – basically, they’re getting junior researchers involved in national security stuff. The project was about “Low-Dimensional Modeling and Identification of Finite-Amplitude Instabilities in Complex Systems,” and there’s a few mentions of rocket fuel in the paper, so coffee seems like a pretty good stand-in for the actual topic. Basically, DARPA was probably trying to get friendly with this researcher early on, hoping to use their math skills for national security work down the road.
Sounds kinda dumb initially, but it’s worth checking out. If you can figure out how to keep your upper body steadier while moving around, you can probably use that to improve your shooting. Just add that to the training, and it’ll pay off big time.
Then use that info to teach robots.
RE: Fact #34 (K-Cup Creator’s Regret) – Lots of stuff like that exists. Turns out, plastic cutlery’s a massive problem in India, and plastic water bottles are a huge waste issue globally. Expect to see tons of projects tackling better options for everyday items.
RE: Fact #1 (TV Breaks and Power Surges) – Thirty years ago, things were different. Now, the power grid’s way better, everyone binge-watches, and shows are basically nonstop.
Lots of people still watch soaps on weeknights, so it makes sense. Britain hasn’t changed *that* much, maybe younger folks have, but plenty of older people are still watching regular TV like they did 30 years ago, sipping tea during the commercials. Factrepublic users might forget that.
RE: Fact #10 (Coffee and Bowel Movements) – Why’s coffee more effective than a triple-caffeine Monster?
RE: Fact #2 (Keurig Creator’s Caffeine Overdose) – His heart was buzzing like crazy.
RE: Fact #18 (Sweet Tea as a Wealth Symbol) – Down South, we’d make sweet tea by boiling the heck out of it with tons of sugar. Then, as it cooled, all that extra sugar would sink to the bottom, so we’d pour off the sweet tea and serve it ice cold. I worked at a BBQ joint in Birmingham back in the 70s, and that’s exactly how we did it. We even put two pig ears on every sandwich! That old Tired Texan always said, “Never skimp on your ingredients.”
So you end up with rock candy, ice, and regular tea?
It’s way too sugary. If you just dump sugar in your tea without properly dissolving it, you’ll end up with some seriously awful tea – not sweet tea at all. You’ll get some serious side-eye in the South for that.
RE: Fact #41 (Robert Fortune: Tea Spy) – The Byzantine Empire even snuck silkworm eggs out of China, hiding them in bamboo tubes.
Back when the Byzantine Empire had spies everywhere, they were seriously powerful. It’s a shame how they fell apart over time.
I’m so glad they went down fighting instead of just collapsing like so many other empires did. It’s wild that the last Romans used actual cannons defending Constantinople – that really shows how long-lasting and powerful their empire was.
RE: Fact #20 (McDonald’s Coffee Burn Lawsuit) – I can’t believe people are still saying this lawsuit was frivolous and should’ve been dropped. It’s mind-boggling how regular folks are defending those greedy, incompetent corporations.
Seriously, I thought this case was crazy at first. But then I learned more – the coffee was super hot, her burns were awful, and she wasn’t even asking for a fortune, just her medical bills and lost pay. McDonald’s only wanted to give her a tiny fraction, though, so it went to court, and she won way more than she initially wanted.
To be fair, lots of lawsuits against big companies are bogus, so it’s easy to see why people thought this was one of them.
RE: Fact #32 (Starbucks Caffeine and Calories) – Does this make me want Starbucks or not? It’s like that Supersize Me movie – I was craving a Big Mac afterwards!
RE: Fact #27 (Turkey’s Tea Consumption Lead) – Ireland and the UK, haha. It’s all about the tea and biscuits over there – that’s their solution to everything!
RE: Fact #32 (Starbucks Caffeine and Calories) – Starbucks Grandes are bigger than Red Bulls, right? A Grande’s 16 ounces, Red Bull’s only 8. But Red Bull has twice the caffeine. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though.
That scone thing is ridiculous. It’s a sugary, heavy pastry. If someone thinks that’s healthier than a cheeseburger, they probably aren’t worried about calories anyway.
And I have no idea where they got their numbers, but Starbucks says their Cinnamon Chip Scones are 480 calories, and McDonald’s says their Big Macs are 530.
Whoops, my bad. Quarter Pounders are 520 calories.
RE: Fact #34 (K-Cup Creator’s Regret) – Seriously, nobody uses the refillable kind?
I got mine at Fry’s for, like, five bucks and they’ve lasted me over six months.
I mostly use it to heat water—I’m too lazy for the microwave.
Need hot water for tea? I’ve got you covered.
Oatmeal? Yep.
Grits? Yep.
Want to throw some at your roommate? I’ve got you covered.
Electric kettles: They’re way more common in the UK, but you won’t believe how handy they are once you use one a bunch.
RE: Fact #25 (Earl Grey: Tea and Reforms) – That’s what the Star Trek captain drinks.
Hot Earl Grey tea.
RE: Fact #2 (Keurig Creator’s Caffeine Overdose) – Reminds me of Eisenhower. The guy downed, like, twenty cups of coffee and three packs of cigarettes daily. Crazy he even made it to the presidency!
Teddy Roosevelt was a serious coffee drinker – a whole gallon a day! And get this, Voltaire? Supposedly 40 or 50 cups daily. Some folks are just crazy about coffee.
Roosevelt’s secret weapon? He didn’t touch alcohol like most guys back then, but he guzzled coffee. While everyone else was a little tipsy or slow, he was buzzing around like crazy.
RE: Fact #39 (Japanese Word for ‘Tea Color’) – Brown in Indonesian is coklat. That’s a cool word, huh?
RE: Fact #50 (Chicory: A Coffee Substitute) – So that’s why chicory’s so big in New Orleans. I’d never even tried it before I went there!
Do they put chicory in the coffee at Cafe Du Monde?
RE: Fact #31 (Boston Women’s Coffee Revolt) – Just like regular criminals, then?
RE: Fact #29 (Swiss Miss: A Wartime Innovation) – Back in the late 50s, Charles Sanna had a mountain of coffee creamer. His family’s dairy company, Sanna Dairy Engineers, had made way too much supplying powdered creamer to American soldiers during the Korean War. He needed to use it all up – and he came up with a yummy idea!
So, he started experimenting in his Wisconsin kitchen, getting his kids and some local kids to try his creations. He mixed powdered creamer, cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and hot water, and finally got a great chocolatey drink. He kept tweaking it, even using powdered milk instead of creamer to make it last longer. That drink, Swiss Miss, became a huge hit in grocery stores and basically started the whole instant hot chocolate craze in America.
It’s funny, Swiss people give me funny looks when I ask about Swiss Miss. It’s actually from Wisconsin!
Seriously, I had no idea! I thought it was some fancy Swiss food.
RE: Fact #40 (Caffeine: Nature’s Defense Mechanism) – Caffeine tricks bees into liking it, kind of like how pigs have amazing sniffs. But a pig’s best smell is a dead body – a group of sixteen can eat a 200-pound body in just eight minutes! That’s two pounds of raw meat per pig, per minute. No wonder they say “greedy as a pig.”
RE: Fact #20 (McDonald’s Coffee Burn Lawsuit) – Liebeck tried to get McDonald’s to pay her $20,000 for her medical bills and lost wages – about $18,000 already spent and expected – but they only offered $800.
RE: Fact #7 (Tea: The World’s Favorite Drink) – Water’s still number one! Lots of people skip it, though.
RE: Fact #16 (Nordic Countries’ Coffee Obsession) – For awesome espresso, try Helsinki.
RE: Fact #33 (Coffee’s Role in the Civil War) – Shelby Foote said Union soldiers always had coffee and Confederate soldiers always had tobacco—proof that secret trading was constant during the war.
The South really wasn’t into coffee during the war. The Union blockade stopped their coffee supply. So, while Union soldiers got their coffee, Confederate soldiers had to make do with whatever they could find, like roasting things like rye or sweet potatoes to make a caffeine-free, warm drink. They even traded with Union soldiers sometimes when there wasn’t fighting.
RE: Fact #38 (19th-Century Whiskey Over Coffee) – If I’m doing the math right—big if—that’s basically two bottles of whiskey for five bucks.
I’ve messed around with a few inflation calculators, and they’re not great for anything before 1900. They only look at a few basic things, but miss a ton of other stuff. Like, back in the 1830s, a worker spent about 60% of their pay on food – basic stuff, not fancy fruits or anything. So, those calculators can’t really tell you what a dollar was worth back then. They’re probably better at tracking salaries or the stock market.
Never thought I’d feel like I was born in the wrong generation before.
RE: Fact #36 (Coffee in California and Hawaii) – Back in ’96, I found out that Panama and Costa Rican coffee are just as good as Kona – even the pros couldn’t tell the difference! It’s decent coffee, but the price is crazy high because of US import costs. Personally, I prefer a good Guatemala Antigua or Huehuetanango.
Climate change is gonna make coffee beans super rare, it’s crazy!
Let the coffee wars begin!
RE: Fact #13 (Global Tea Terms: Te vs. Cha) – One for Cha, two for Te.
RE: Fact #42 (Black Tea vs. Green Tea) – All tea’s from the same plant, it just depends when they pick it.
So, yeah, “tea” usually means black tea, but rooibos and herbal stuff get called tea too, even though they’re not really. Can be a bit tricky, I guess.
RE: Fact #44 (Milk Before Tea: Wealth Symbolism) – I majored in art, focusing on ceramics. This is my chance to show off! 🙂
Porcelain’s a high-fire clay—you need crazy heat to make it. China figured out how to make kilns hot enough, but kept it a secret to keep a porcelain monopoly. Their porcelain was way better than what Europe had: stronger, lighter, less prone to cracking, and whiter.
Clay is basically silica with a metal added to lower the firing temperature. Think leaded glass—lead’s a flux because it melts easily. Most European clays used iron, making them darker. China used calcium, which made their ceramics super white and strong, but it needed a super-hot kiln.
Chinese porcelain became a huge status symbol, creating major demand in Europe. But without the tech, they made cheap knockoffs that cracked easily. Since the English mostly drank tea with milk, poor folks poured milk first to avoid cracking their teacups. This became a class thing; adding milk first meant you were poor and unrefined.
Even after Europe figured out how to make high-fire porcelain, the milk-first stigma stuck around.
So yeah, I’m a total ceramics nerd—ask me anything!
RE: Fact #33 (Coffee’s Role in the Civil War) – Maybe General Sherman got a little carried away with the coffee roasting?
RE: Fact #45 (Tea’s Calming Caffeine Effect) – It’s got way less caffeine—like, a quarter of the amount—in an 8-ounce cup. That’s probably the real reason.
RE: Fact #16 (Nordic Countries’ Coffee Obsession) – Four months of no sun? You’ll need some serious motivation to get up in the morning.
RE: Fact #37 (Decaf Coffee Still Contains Caffeine) – Non-alcoholic beer is typically around half a percent alcohol.
RE: Fact #38 (19th-Century Whiskey Over Coffee) – The main thing was settling the Ohio River valley. Farmers grew lots of grain, but couldn’t easily get it to market. Getting it to the Mississippi meant it could go to New Orleans and then on to the East Coast, but that wasn’t easy. Getting it there overland was impossible before trains.
Turning the grain into whiskey was smart—it made it more valuable and easier to ship, plus it wouldn’t rot.
RE: Fact #46 (Tea for British Troop Morale) – A crazy fact: 4 out of 10 British tank crew guys in WWII died *outside* their tanks, mostly while making tea! The Centurion tank, showing up in August ’45, had a built-in kettle – and that saved more lives than better armor ever could.
RE: Fact #6 (Coffee: Satan’s Bitter Invention?) – After the Battle of Vienna, coffee wasn’t just for fancy folks anymore. The Ottomans left tons of coffee behind when they ran off, so the Viennese grabbed it and started selling it in coffee shops. That’s also when they invented the croissant—a half-moon pastry to go with the coffee, even copying the Ottomans’ crescent moon flag! Their catchy slogan was: “Come eat and drink the Turk!”
RE: Fact #43 (Accidental Invention of Tea Bags) – That’s how people started the weird tradition of dropping their testicles on a sleeping friend’s forehead.
Oh, it probably had a different name, maybe something like “foreballing”.
RE: Fact #22 (Voltaire’s 40-Cup Habit) – He drank a ton of caffè mocha every day.
RE: Fact #19 (Caffeine Overdose in Wales) – Sounds like he messed up measuring—maybe tried for 200 or 300 milligrams but ended up with 20 or 30 grams. That’s like, ten huge spoonfuls! How’d he even get that much powder into a drink without noticing something was wrong? Probably wasn’t a pleasant experience.
RE: Fact #11 (Coffee’s Role in Fighting Gout) – I have gout and I’m a coffee fiend. I didn’t even bother reading the whole factrepublic thing, I’m just believing it.
RE: Fact #14 (Boston Tea Party’s Coffee Shift) – They had to switch to coffee—the British East India Company embargoed tea, so coffee was all they could get.
RE: Fact #49 (Porsche’s Coffee-Safe Tractor) – Why do so many big engines use diesel?
RE: Fact #42 (Black Tea vs. Green Tea) – It happens.
RE: Fact #8 (Swedish Coffee vs. Tea Experiment) – Picture that king in a modern city, seeing a Starbucks on every block.
RE: Fact #17 (Tea Drinkers Live Longer) – Hey everyone, before you start pointing out other things that might be affecting the results, take a look at the study itself. Good studies always account for other variables and talk about things that could be confusing the results, plus how the things might actually be related. It’s not as straightforward as just saying correlation and causation aren’t the same thing.
RE: Fact #19 (Caffeine Overdose in Wales) – Was it like that Futurama episode where time stops?
RE: Fact #5 (East Germany’s Coffee Gamble) – I was blown away by how big coffee is in Vietnam when I moved here. Starbucks wouldn’t stand a chance – there are like six amazing coffee shops on every street corner, all cheaper and better.
RE: Fact #22 (Voltaire’s 40-Cup Habit) – He lived to be 83 using 1700s medicine—pretty amazing, huh? I bet someone on factrepublic is itching to mention “survival bias,” but I got there first!
RE: Fact #25 (Earl Grey: Tea and Reforms) – There’s a big debate about how Earl Grey tea actually got started. Some folks reckon it was a bit of a sneaky trick to sell cheaper Indian tea as fancy Chinese black tea – the Chinese stuff already had a bit of a citrusy flavor, so it worked pretty well.
RE: Fact #9 (Arizona Iced Tea’s 99¢ Legacy) – A couple years ago, I was in a friend’s wedding party, and we went way overboard at the rehearsal dinner. Next morning, I had a killer hangover and was chugging water like crazy. I probably drank two gallons of Arizona Iced Tea before the wedding. Right as the ceremony started, I had to pee SO bad. I didn’t want to make a scene or upset my friend, so I tried to hold it, but I couldn’t. Twenty minutes later, I felt it – Arizona Iced Tea waterfalling down my leg. People in the pews gasped, cried, and laughed. It was the most embarrassing thing ever, and I haven’t been to a wedding since. I’m even seeing a therapist now to deal with it.
RE: Fact #14 (Boston Tea Party’s Coffee Shift) – Looking forward to those interesting “Freedom Fries” facts.
RE: Fact #23 (Dunkin’s Aroma Ad Campaign) – That’s seriously wrong.
RE: Fact #48 (Frederick’s Coffee Prohibition) – So, Mecca banned coffee way back in 1511 because the bigwigs thought it made people too rebellious. Italian priests in the 1500s also tried to ban it, calling it evil. But then Pope Clement VII became a fan and had it blessed in 1600! Things got even crazier when Murad IV became the Ottoman leader in 1623 and started punishing coffee drinkers—beatings and being tossed in the sea! Sweden even banned coffee stuff like mugs in 1746. And finally, Frederick the Great of Prussia preferred beer and basically declared it better than coffee in 1777, worried it’d cut into beer sales.
Coffee baptism? Pretty wild.
RE: Fact #21 (Haiti’s Coffee Support for Greece) – Some historians say Boyer sent the Greeks 25 tons of Haitian coffee to sell for weapons, but there’s not much proof of that, or of a hundred Haitian volunteers going to fight in the Greek Revolution. Rumor has it their ship was attacked by pirates in the Mediterranean, and they never made it.
RE: Fact #47 (Coffee Flour: A Sustainable Option) – Is it any good, or is it awful?
RE: Fact #31 (Boston Women’s Coffee Revolt) – Boston’s always buzzing with something hot to drink.
RE: Fact #27 (Turkey’s Tea Consumption Lead) – Turkish tea’s usually brewed super strong, way more leaves than other teas. I wonder if that changes if we looked at it per cup instead of by weight.
RE: Fact #21 (Haiti’s Coffee Support for Greece) – The first caffeine-fueled revolution.