I am the perfect person to talk about tea and coffee because I have had them both and am not impressed. I mean, I can take it or leave it—take it if someone else is making it, leave it if I have to make it. Both beverages were invented by monosyllabic people who got to sip every time they were expected to speak. On the other hand, exhibitionist types love the drama of suddenly springing up from a sofa, reciting all on offer, making the said beverage from scratch, and then presenting it in exotic cups on a jeweled tray.
A certain intimacy is then thought to be established. As you can see, tea and coffee are equally misunderstood by both introverts and extroverts. Apart from the various nomenclatural mishaps that can occur while ordering tea or coffee, that then arrive in a variety of temperatures from lukewarm to tepid, there is also the snob value of knowing your first flush from your oolongs.
And to those who tell you off with an ‘it’s espresso, not expresso’, tell them it means the same. The daddy-mommy of all tea is the Camellia Sinensis plant, while all of coffee comes from the seeds of berries of a certain coffee species—if you don’t believe me, just google and see like I did. I have recognised the danger of filling up awkward pauses during conversations with unwanted guests by saying, ‘would you like some tea?’ When clocks hold their breath and you rush in with the asinine words, like a tea-vending machine suddenly come to life.
I trained myself, through biting tongue constantly, to not offer anything. Instead, I wait till they get up in slow motion and finally walk towards the door, where I say as if in conclusion, ‘You didn’t even have tea’, in a cadence that lowers as I speak. At the last word—‘tea’—I look like the bomb I planted in my own home will detonate any minute now. Of course, there are those who will bounce back with an enthusiastic ‘yes’, leaving me grumpily to wash a saucepan and fill with water etc.
Why must garlic and onions get all the bad press? Tea-breath or coffee-breath is equally lethal in kissing circles, where anything other than mint or mouthwash feels off whether you are the kissed or the kisser. The tea smells like stale coffee and the coffee smells like tea that just died. Though to non-drinkers it is no big deal, tea and coffee have their own war-rooms. Like the legendary rivalry between Kauravas and Pandavas, Dilliwallahs and Mumbaikars, Punjabis and Madrasis, tea and coffee drinkers will always need a referee. If not green tea or black coffee, red blood could be spilt.
Shinie Antony
Author shinieantony@gmail.com