Coffee, tea and drinking culture

Almost every culture has a stimulant drink and a set of conventions around it, and the conventions are frequently more informative than the drink.

Coffee

The traditions vary enormously.

Italy, where espresso is drunk standing at the bar, quickly, and where the timing conventions are specific — milk-based coffee in the morning and not after a meal.

Ordering otherwise is not an offence and is noticed.

Turkey and the Balkans, where coffee is prepared unfiltered with the grounds settling, served with water, and drunk slowly over conversation.

The associated tradition of reading the grounds is genuine and is generally offered playfully.

Ethiopia, where the coffee ceremony involves roasting, grinding and brewing in the presence of guests, served in three rounds, over a substantial period.

It is a hospitality ritual rather than a beverage service, and accepting all three rounds is the convention.

The Nordic countries, which have among the highest per-capita consumption anywhere, with filter coffee drunk throughout the day and specific social occasions built around it.

Vietnam, with strong coffee brewed through a metal filter over condensed milk, and a substantial café culture in which people sit for hours.

The Gulf states, where cardamom-spiced coffee is served in small cups as a formal hospitality ritual with its own conventions about refusal and acceptance.

Tea

Where the ceremonial traditions are most developed.

China, with regional traditions and a formal preparation practice using small vessels and multiple short infusions.

Japan, where the formal tea ceremony is a codified practice with substantial history, and where everyday tea drinking is entirely separate from it.

India, where spiced milk tea is prepared and sold by vendors everywhere and is a genuine social institution.

The regional variations in spicing are substantial.

Morocco and North Africa, where mint tea is poured from a height into small glasses and is central to hospitality.

Refusing is difficult and generally unnecessary.

Britain and Ireland, where the conventions concern milk, strength and the social meaning of offering it.

Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, where the shared gourd of yerba mate has specific conventions about who prepares it, the order of passing and how to indicate you have had enough.

Getting these wrong is noticed and is generally forgiven.

The social function

What the drink is actually for, which differs.

In some traditions it is a rapid stimulant consumed standing.

In others it is the pretext for sitting somewhere for two hours.

In others it is a formal hospitality ritual with obligations on both sides.

Which means the same drink occupies an entirely different position, and understanding which applies changes how you use a café.

The practical points

For visitors.

Prices frequently differ by where you consume — standing at the bar, sitting inside, or sitting outside — in several countries, and the difference can be substantial.

This is generally displayed and rarely noticed.

Ordering conventions differ: paying first, paying after, ordering at the bar, table service.

Watching what others do for a minute resolves it.

And the strength and size conventions differ enormously, which is why an order that means one thing at home produces something unexpected.

Where to drink

A recommendation.

The place where local people drink at the time they drink it, which for morning coffee is generally a small bar near where people work rather than anywhere aimed at visitors.

These are cheap, quick and are where a substantial amount of a place's social life occurs.

Sitting in one for an hour, particularly in the morning, is among the more informative things a visitor can do.

What to bring home

Consumables travel well and are used, as discussed elsewhere on this site.

Coffee and tea from where they are produced, along with the equipment specific to the preparation — a pot, a filter, a grinder, a gourd — are among the most reliably kept purchases from any trip.

And the practice itself, adopted at home, recalls the place more effectively than any object.