A very particular bean

Different blends of Ceylon black tea headed for the Russian market being taste tested at the Unilever Lipton Tea factory in Jebel Ali (Photo by Jeff Topping/The National)

Tea and coffee are very much the drinks of the common people. But that wasn’t always the case

Although it is widely thought that the Arabs were the first to prepare coffee, it is more likely they were merely the first to cultivate it, trade it and – crucially – write about it. The earliest accounts of coffee come from Yemen in the 15th century, where the East African beans were first cultivated.

But even then, it was a drink for the rich. First in the sacred places of southern Arabia, then in the seat of Ottoman power in Istanbul and eventually among the fashionable of Venice and Italy, the ritual of coffee was savoured by those people who – doubtless the common people would have said – had more money than sense. The same occurred with tea, as first the Chinese and then other nations prepared the plant leaves only for those who could afford it.

How times change. There are few more democratic drinks today than tea and coffee. On a daily basis, a majority of the planet consumes one or the other – sometimes both. But as both drinks have become commonplace, so the urge to differentiate has gripped those with disposable incomes. The new “tea salons” that are coming to the capital are just part of this process, as is the ordering of coffee that has originated on a particular hill in Ethiopia or a particular field in Thailand. Those who think such pickiness is ridiculous should remember that others said the same centuries ago.