Why was coffee never as popular as tea in the UK? Does it have to do with India?

Answer 1

Yes, generally. Coffee is a native herb of Ethiopia and was eventually exported thereafter throughout the New World.

Coffee was not held to be the tonic that tea was and is: teas are several different species, many of which were taken as much for their medicinal as their nutrient makeup...that is to say, a food.

A fascinating curiosity is, the English did much travel to China and traded with this country but never quite took to the great Green Tea, a much milder and an extremely beneficial herb in terms of its tonic and medicinal properties.

Tea as we know it here just seemed to fit the palates of the English more than coffee aside from the historical component, which is truly a factor as well.

The tea that the English became noted for is the familiar herb, pekoe, such as is Lipton tea, as used in North America, which does have certain medicinal qualities and does not quite affect the nervous and digestive system as does coffee, though both contain caffeine; both are contraindicated for certain medical conditions.

But this is and was true of all medical applications, allopathic or naturopathic. All plants are herbs, all... many are of course foods, like that of tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce and so on... herbs !

Still others exist, and several categories of herbs are fitted for specific purposes: there are thousands, and no one culture knows them all.

As in all digestible plants, there are certain side-effects from ingesting any tea as with any herb -- all is foreign to the body, and thus some with effects more so than others.

Pekoe tea tends to cause constipaton in some. That might stand to reason why many of the British tend to be anal retentive... ;~)

Answer 2

ok taking a "usa isnt the centre of the universe" stance (unlike some other answers) we need to look at why:

1 - India was important but Africa also grew coffee... So why was Tea MORE popular? probably because people have drunk tea for hundreds if not thousands of years - coffee has not always been a drink - only in relatively modern times has it been a drink - other times it was a quick snack..... fertiliser etc....

2 - It was cheaper then coffee
3 - was able to be preserved better (3 months on a boat didnt really destroy tea but coffee went soar and bitter)

Hopefully this helps

Answer 3

I can't give you a source on this, but I remember hearing back in high school that coffee really caught in in America only as an alternative to tea. The tax on tea made it expensive when the US was still a Brittish colony, so the Americans boycotted it- leading up to the famous Boston tea-party. Since the people in the US weren't drinking tea, they had to figure out something else that would be good with a hot breakfast, and coffee fit the bill. Since England never felt compelled to boycott tea, it never got into coffee.

Answer 4

Yes. Europe started out trading with India, and other southern/central asian countries, and coffee was made over in the new world, so they already had hundreds of years of tea by the time coffee beans were discovered.