Coffee & Tea Trivia

Coffee and tea have fueled empires, revolutions, and approximately every office in the world — and their backstories are stranger than either beverage's caffeine jitters.

One Leaf, Many Teas

Nearly every "true tea" — green, black, white, or oolong — comes from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. What separates them is processing: green tea is barely oxidized, oolong is partly oxidized, and black tea is fully oxidized before drying. Anything brewed from other plants, however soothing, is technically an herbal tisane rather than tea.

Legends and Ledgers

• Coffee's discovery is traditionally credited to an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi, whose goats got frisky after eating coffee cherries.
• Tea drinking is traditionally traced to ancient China and a legend involving Emperor Shen Nong.
• The Boston Tea Party of 1773 dumped chests of tea into the harbor to protest British taxation.

From Bean to Cup

Espresso forces hot water through finely ground coffee under pressure, while cappuccino takes its name from the brown-robed Capuchin friars its color resembles. Of the two dominant coffee species, Arabica beans are generally prized as smoother and more expensive than the hardier, more bitter Robusta.