h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Now let's not have any of this lagging around the subject...
Coffee is by far the better beverage - it's got a decent kick, tastes good and doesn't have to sit in a pot for half an hour before you drink it.
Tea on the other hand is messy (bags everywhere), has to brew, needs milk, lemon, sugar and probably a permit to drink the damn stuff (if you really must).
I sit back and await the tea-drinkers point of view

There's a time and place for everything - and both tea and coffee have their relative merits. Mon-Fri - first thing it has to be tea. Coffee this early is frankly dangerous. None of this pre-warmed pot nonsense. Tea-bag, mug, 1 minute max. On arrival at work, I'm afraid it has to be tea again. I have to survive all day without going nuts, so caffeine levels must be strictly controlled (and I don't believe in decaff). 11.00am : coffee, always, and never tea. Unfortunately this is restricted to instant coffee, so one cup is about all I can take until... 3.00pm : another coffee. (A cup of tea might have snuck in over lunch, but this is rare). Evening beverages are rarely anything softer than wine, but general rules are tea before 6.30pm, coffee later. Weekends the rules go out of the window - Tea doesn't stand a chance. It's too ephemeral a drink for lounging over the newspaper with. The weekend deserves something far more substantial - italian roast in stove-top espresso maker, with plenty of warmed milk, all-day long. But being English, I couldn't go without tea in my life. It has something comforting about it (something soothing and motherly) which coffee is too hard-edged for.

Well I think you've hit the nail right on the button, there. Coffee and tea both have their place. I would not want to do without either one.

However, just as people, they have their own personalities. There are times you want a nice cuppa [tea]. There are other times when only the company of coffee will do. Tea is sorta more friendlier-like. It means a comfy chair and a nice rug tucked in around the toes, and maybe a few biscuits on a plate. A good book and roaring fire are strongly suggested, as well. If you are looking out into a drizzily rain, you are completely safe from chill and depression with the above arrangement.

Coffee is a much more 'up-and-at'em kinda drink. Not for wusses. Black; lotsa caffine; no sugar. That's about the only thing that will coax all the parts of my body to report for duty in the morning. Coffee also adds a dimension to after dinner sweets or drinks. A yummy dessert is enhanced when followed by coffee and brandy. The experience would not be the same without the coffee.

The same differences appear when each are served iced. Iced tea has a completely different personality from iced coffee, but both are perfectly respectable drinks.

As a proud Australian, I think i must enter into this debate. Tea, unfortunately, is an exceedingly british drink. Not just due to its gentelmanly, waterish discretion, but because of the bland, pale, inoffensive atmosphere that it gives off. And although I can sympathise with Arthur Dent for his perpetual struggle to wrestle a cup of tea from the sirius cybernetics corporation drink machines, I just cant understand why anyone could choose this discrete flavoured water over a cup of coffee...the drink which grabs you, and instructs you on exactly how to behave for the next three hours. I suppose that tea would meet a gorgeous girl at a nightclub, but it's coffee that would take her home and give it the fenchurch treatment

peace

Despite being terribly even-handed earlier, I must stand up in defence of the english cuppa. I think one of tea's charms is its 'discretion'; its subtlety and fluffiness. Its gentlemanly wishy-washiness is what makes it such a comforting drink. Its resemblance to wet milk is part of its attraction. But a strongly brewed northern cuppa (I think the quality of water matters here) has the power to take the enamel off your teeth, and although not give you the grevious bodily harm of coffee, it can at least shout loud enough to make itself noticed. Personally, I do prefer the incredibly watery beigeness of weak tea. Lovely...

Coffee has the advantage of being able to add flavors to it. There is a whole industry dedicated to flavored syrups and creams. But most improtant you can add liquor to coffee. Whisky, Bailey's, Pepperment Schapps. Note adding liquor to coffee at the work place is often frowed upon. (Hell in the US a beer during lunch is frowned upon!)

I also subscribe to the view that there is an attraction in both beverages.

It's interesting to note the division between those in the New World who prefer the brash kick of coffee and openly deride the weaker points of tea, and the Brits who feel the necessity to defend the qualities of Tea, heedless of their own preferences.

We are also neglecting the fact that the majority of people in the world don't drink tea like the British - hot water with a drop of milk and a swift dipping of really strong black tea.

Green China Tea for example is a completely different experience.
Or Japanese.
Or Lapsang Souchong.
Or Earl Grey.

I still love coffee tho'

I was just wondering why you all seem to miss out on the aroma part.

One of my clearest memories of childhood is when my mom and I went to the tea shop. The smell of hundreds of different teas is nothing but a miracle.

Come to think about it, the smell of coffee beans is also fantastic.

Personally I prefer coffee most of the time, but when I need to smoothen out the vocal cords, I prefer tea with honey.

Coffee is for the strong in mind
Tea is for the strong in faith

...or something like that, I just felt a ridiculous need to say something like that... sorry.

For me, I think it's also a seasonal thing.

Coffe is a get up 'n' go summer drink. Tea is a curl up in a warm jumper, by the fire with a good book kinda drink.

Yes. It's October.

But let's here it for the aroma thang!
*Audacious round of applause*

Ooh, interesting seasonal tastes. I prefer tea in the summer and find it much more refreshing than coffee, which has too much weight and solidity to be a light, fluffy summer thing (especially if you take it such that the teaspoon stands up in it). But autumn/winter is for me a hot chocolate season. It has the same comforting homeliness as tea, but with a good chocolately buzz, that is reminiscent of the coffee thing (but needless to say can't quite match that coffee kick).
On the aroma subject, I'm envious of the memories of numerous types of tea aromas; but that heady scent of coffee being ground - delicious.

Any suggestions for a decent coffee with bags of flavour but a pretty mild caffeine hit. I drink it espressoed with milk (if that makes sense) and some coffees make me feel dizzy from the caffeine rush. This is all well and good, but what about when in charge of machinery?

Okay, so I'm a bit late here, but better late than never, right?

When I have to drink something not quite as strong as coffee, I always drink a Wiener Melange (It's the machine at my work that makes it) I think it's equal parts coffee, milk and chocolate. It's a pretty f***ing good drink.
:-9

Have you guys/gels never had a real cup of tea? BAGS!? You should never use a tea bag! Brew it in the pot, for gods sake! The tea in bags is almost always of the poorest quality. I prefer tea with milk and sugar, but I won't argue this point much, as people have different tastes, but I think you should try a _good_ cup of tea before condemning all tea.
I like a cup of coffee after dinner, but I can't drink it all day long as with tea (seven cups in a few ours?, no problem!).

I tend to drink coffee when I'm out and tea when I make it myself at home or at the office. I've never managed to make a decent cup of coffee (I generally only have time for instant coffee which never seems to taste quite as good), but I've never found anywhere where they sell a better cup of tea than I can make myself, even with an ordinary tea-bag. Maybe I just don't know where to look... any tips?

Coffee for me please.
During the day I fil my Humongous mug (see http://www.h2g2.com/A392131 ) 5 to 6 times.
Ocasionally, when my brain goes on a holiday, I drink rooibos tea with lemon.


ZOE ya round.

I don't know where you live Samulus, but in Stockholm where I live you usually make your own tea at a Café(ironic, drinking tea at a coffee house), so it's practically home made. You get a 'container' for the tea leaves (of your choice) and pour the water yourself. But I agree, make it yourself.

It's the same here. At cafes or wherever, they bring a little pot of hot water and a tea bag and you make your own tea.

I don't believe in coffee vs tea. Give me both and give me lots of them.

It's the same here. At cafes or wherever, they bring a little pot of hot water and a tea bag and you make your own tea, at least when you have hot tea. Iced tea is another matter, but I won't go into that here.

I don't believe in coffee vs tea. Give me both and give me lots of them.

Replying to two points made above - just like coffee, tea can be made to whatever strength you want it, wishy-washy or otherwise. Personally, I prefer mine strong enough that you could walk across it and leave footprints. Dark enough that even with the milk in, it could almost be mistaken for Guinness.

The aroma thing is puzzling. Coffee smells as good in the cup as it does in the tin, yet the wonderful smell of tea leaves disappears as soon as you make the brew! Any chemists around who can explain this? There is, imho, no smell in the world as inviting or as delicate as that of a newly opened packet of tea.

Coffee. first thing in the morning, with any meal, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the night. Im sorry if you don't have a head cold then tea just isn't enough, even really bad coffee is better than most teas. and besides when youre in a resteraunt with incompetent staff(this occurs almost everywhere with the exception of a few people world wide}then it is much easier to get their attention for more coffee than for a refil of water that you have to wait on a fresh bag which you also have to wait for and more lemon which they have to take a plane to anywhere they grow citris and wait for a tree to grow and then bring back the one lemon and forge the knife to cut it with and then think of bringing it to you.
coffee everytime for me and just black please.