If you look around in American creative circles, coffee certainly seems to be the dominant caffeinated beverage of choice –- more than ever with the growing diversity of brew, flavor, and temperature options thanks to the craft coffee movement.  Coffee is the all-American pick-me-up. We drink it in the morning, the afternoon, and often even at night. Its preparation has become ritual, with different communities and generations touting different brew methods and roasts as the best way to make a quality cup of coffee.  Whether you take your coffee black from a drip Cuisinart or hand-ground, measured, and manually poured into a preheated V60 Range Server, its ubiquity cannot be denied. Tea in America has traditionally held a different set of connotations, being associated with calm, quiet, introspection, and alongside activities like settling in on a rainy day with a novel in hand or taking a bougie late afternoon meal in your Sunday best.  Despite these specific associations, there is a fervent camp of tea fans here in the States, some of whom would stop at nothing to bring tea to the same level of adoration that coffee enjoys on our streets, in our studios, at our desks, and in the field.

So which is actually the better sidekick for you?

Coffee

This beautiful bean has been brewed in various forms for over 800 years, being sourced from Africa, Southeast Asia, and the tropical Americas.  It has been developed, differentiated, and perfected in these places as well as in European cultures, Japan, indochina, the Middle-East, and the United States.  The coffee houses of England and France birthed the enlightenment. “Coffee and gasoline” ran the United States during its 20th-century golden age (Dave Barry). Starbucks and the third wave coffee movement has helped to export American cafe culture around the globe.  J.S. Bach wrote an opera about his coffee obsession.  Teddy Roosevelt drank a gallon of coffee every day.  Those who stand by coffee as the ultimate fuel are in good company.

Here’s how coffee stacks up:

Caffeine: Let’s be honest -- did you first get into coffee for the taste, or for the energizing boost it so faithfully offers?  Coffee has more caffeine than tea, hands down. An average cup of black tea (the most caffeinated of the main tea varieties) only boasts about 25-48mg of caffeine.  An average 8 oz. cup of drip coffee (depending on roast and strength) can have up to 200. That’s easily more than double the kick per cup. Light roasts and blends of coffee have more kick to them than do darker roasts - with the range typically falling between 95 and 165mg per 8 oz. cup (Mayo Clinic).  You can ask most coffee die-hards, however, where their love lies, and they’ll tell you that while they may have come for the caffeine, they now stay for the flavor.

Flavor: Coffee’s flavor is generally more robust than tea (though it becomes a harder claim if you’ve ever tasted Lapsang Souchong - Winston Churchill’s brew of choice).  Its taste is often compared to chocolate, which makes sense when you consider that both chocolate and coffee come from a “cherry” which holds inside a bean, which is subsequently roasted and ground before it is enjoyed.  Coffees have a distinct common flavor, but when grown, harvested, cleaned, roasted, and prepared correctly they can also have a great diversity of bodies and flavor notes (see the interactive coffee flavor wheel here).  Coffees are generally acidic.

In addition, coffee can easily be flavored by additions*.  Coffees are often sweetened with cream, milks, sugar, simple syrup, flavor syrups, and spices.

Coffee, when prepared correctly, can be sweet and hold a diversity of flavors; however, if stored or prepared incorrectly, it can be infamously bitter.

*PRO TIP: if you really like coffee, don’t drink “flavored” coffee beans - you’re drinking chemical aromas that have been soaked in or sprayed on to the beans post-roast.  If you want to sweeten or flavor your coffee, you should add syrups or raw sugar.

Health: There have been years of medical debate on the benefits and drawbacks of coffee to your health, but here’s where consensus currently stands:

• Coffee is good for your heart.  
• It contains potassium, manganese, magnesium, and niacin.
• Fights alzheimer's
• Fights depression
• Protects the liver
• Defends against diabetes
• Defends against certain cancers
• Reduces risk of Parkinson’s

On the downside, however:

• Very acidic
• Can cause acid reflux/heartburn
• If not taken in moderation can cause caffeine related issues
• Noticeably addictive (due to caffeine content)
• Can cause caffeine “crashes”

TLDR: coffee is the stronger flavored, more chocolatey, more roasty of the two.  It gives you a stronger caffeine boost, but often brings along an energy crash a few hours later.  Probably only healthy to have 2-3 cups a day. Can be diversified with different beans, roasts, methods of preparation, milks, sugars, and flavor syrups.  Delicious hot, iced, frozen, or cold-brewed.

Tea

Historically, tea was actually the quintessential American beverage.  It was only after the American Revolutionary War that Americans, inspired by John Adams, eschewed their favorite drink in the name of patriotism, in order to separate themselves both culturally and economically from Great Britain.  Before we began importing and drinking the famously “new world” beverage that is coffee, tea was the American staple. The drink was introduced to the British, and subsequently the United States via China and India – both part His/Her Majesty’s Empire at one time or another.

Being literally thousands of years old, tea has a great diversity to it – even more so than coffee.  Depending on its level of oxidation and different ingredients, teas come in black, green, white, oolong, herbal/tisane –- and these are just umbrella groups.  Black tea alone can be enjoyed as Chai, Assam, Earl Grey, Prince of Wales, Darjeeling, etc. Tea also has vastly different preparing and drinking cultures depending on location.  Enjoying a classing English or Irish “cuppa” tea is quite different than preparing and enjoying a pot of Chinese “gong fu” tea, and again different from a mug of Indian Masala Chai.  

Tea has been called the “mover of nations” for reasons both literal and figurative, large and small.  The Opium Wars were fought over it.  George Orwell thought it necessary in 1946 to write and publish an essay setting the record straight on how to make the perfect cup of tea.  If you have thought yourself unique in your love of tea when you get down to business (or have just finished up with it), you’re far from alone.

Here’s what tea looks like:

Caffeine:  Tea provides generally four main options for caffeine.  Black tea offers the highest caffeine content (between 25-48mg/8 oz.), then oolong (50-75mg), green (35-70mg), and white teas (30-55mg) respectively.  Herbal teas are comprised of various herbal and botanical infusions, and usually contain no caffeine (Choice Organics).

Where tea’s boost really differs from coffee, however, is in its effect.  Tea drinkers report a more gradual pick-up from tea, and one that doesn't end in a crash as can coffee’s -- though a slower and less dramatic wake-up at that.  George Orwell writes in his aforementioned essay that one feels “wiser, braver, [and] more optimistic” after a proper cup of Indian (black) tea, yet all the while tea retains its reputation of helping to produce calm.  This is a unique combination.

Flavor:  Tea has an astringent, earthy flavor that can vary from muted to bright depending on leaf and oxidation type as well as steeping method and time.  Unlike coffee, which comes from a fruit, tea comes from dried leaves of the camellia senensis plant which are oxidized to varying degrees, producing different tea types.  The flavors of tea leaves are altered in specific blends with the additives of spices, herbs, and other flavorings added among the steeping leaves (for example, Earl Grey being a blend of black tea leaves mixed with Italian bergamot rind and oils).  They are also flavored with sugars, honey, milk, or lemon -- though milk typically only in black or certain herbal teas like chamomile and rooibos, and lemon in green or black (and not alongside milk, it curdles in your cup with lemon).

Health:  Tea is famous for its health benefits -- especially green tea.  Here’s a breakdown of its benefits and potential downsides:

• Tea is loaded with antioxidants
• Decreases inflammation
• Improves insulin sensitivity
• Reduces the risk of heart disease
• Promotes oral health
• Lowers risk of certain cancers
• Lowers cholesterol
• May protect against Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

Potential downsides:

• If not taken in moderation can cause caffeine related issues
• Potentially addictive (caffeine)
• Certain teas are potentially correlated with kidney stones (oxalate)

TLDR:  Tea is the earthy flavored, softer alternative of the two.  It provides less of a caffeine boost per cup, but a more balanced, gradual boost that does not end in a crash.  You can comfortably drink 3-5 cups a day. It can be diversified by choosing black, green, white, rooibos, or herbal blends, all with different flavors, features and caffeine contents, as well as in the optional addition of (typically) milk, sugar, honey, and/or spices.

Can be enjoyed hot, iced, and sometimes frozen.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, the question of coffee or tea boils down to personal preference (pun intended?).  Do you better fuel your productivity with the flavor of coffee and the classic boldness it offers, or do you prefer to steep in the softly energizing nuances of tea.  Perhaps you -- like me -- are a hybrid and start your morning off with a mug of strong, black coffee and temper the afternoon or evening with a cup of chai.

What really matters is that we enjoy our beverage of choice for what it is, a fabulous gift from a God who makes all things good.  “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil,” wrote Solomon the Wise in Ecclesiastes, “...for apart from Him, who can have joy?”  The rest, he writes, is “... like striving after wind”. The taste and caffeine jolt from the world’s most consumed drug are fleeting, but the joy, inspiration, and confidence we can experience in these temporary moments are part of something truly lasting.

Put the kettle on, get the grinder out, and “...whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

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Sound off in the comments on whether you are a coffee or tea person and why.  We’re curious to know where our readers, artists, and friends lie.

Forefront is committed to fostering a robust conversation on the intersection of Christian faith and the arts by publishing a wide range of voices and opinions. The views expressed here reflect those of the author.