Coffee v. Tea
By Ciera Miller
Coffee or tea?
The monumental question. Which is better? How should the battle between coffee and tea be fought? Should it be based on taste? Should it be based on health? Do any of these really matter in the end anyways? You can always add flavor to tea or to coffee to make it taste better, maybe make it not even taste like either but some other sweet substance that has a little coffee or a small tea bag in it. And both affect different bodies differently. Typing it into Google, you’ll find a lot of articles about which is healthier, but not many on which is tastier.
According to Health, tea has a lot of pros. Antioxidants in tea seem to have the power of reducing inflammation, heart disease, and boosts brain health. It apparently helps in anti-aging as well, so it slows the decline of memory and gives tea drinkers a younger age biologically than their mental state as well. Also, high bone density! But there are cons. It’s well known that tea stains your teeth. The caffeine in tea can be a problem as well because if you’re sensitive to it, it can send your anxiety levels soaring, especially if you’re not a regular tea drinker.
A friend of mine prefers tea. It has less caffeine than coffee does, which is a plus for him. And even though it has caffeine, tea interacts with your body differently when breaking down the caffeine, he said. It helps his brain to work at a better rate, and he deems that tea uses the caffeine better, and he likes that. Coffee would be too much for him.
However, a different friend voiced her love for coffee. A drinker of both, when asked she almost couldn’t decide which, but after a moment’s thought, she chose coffee. Why? Because she’s in her coffee phase right now, duh. But the tea she was currently drinking wasn’t doing it for her, at least taste-wise and smell-wise. A favorite coffee drink of hers is a caramel macchiato, and the lemon tea she was drinking just didn’t compare to the sweet coffee she’s always in the mood for.
Health again informs about the pros of coffee. It, too, has antioxidants that help protect the drinker from certain diseases, like type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s, and certain types of cancers. Prevention of a premature death is also linked to coffee consumption. But it also has its cons: it leads to higher cholesterol because of how it’s brewed, it also stains teeth, and of course, it’s very high in caffeine. But the caffeine gives us regular coffee drinkers energy, so how bad could it really be?
My bias is showing. I vote coffee all the way, but there are people out there who won’t drink either. One friend always expresses his hatred for coffee whenever I show up to hang out with one in my hand. He calls it “nasty bean water” and tells me it smells, and that it’s going to cut my life in half. With tea, it’s the same, but he calls it “nasty leaf water” and says that it’ll stain my teeth. Coffee or tea? Chocolate milk, he says.
Why do I like coffee over tea? Well first, my mom drinks tea like it’s the air she needs to breathe, and in my rebellious stage, I chose to rebel by drinking coffee, which she hates. The smell, the taste, bleh. And there’s not just one way to make coffee. There’s not even just one type of coffee. Not that there’s one way to make tea or one type of tea, but there’s something different and more fun about getting a drip coffee one day and then getting a latte another day and still a frappuccino (coffee-based) another day. And just making it itself seems more fun. Heating water and sticking a tea bag or steeping leaves in it is just so boring.
But some people like the simplicity. It’s not my opinion overall that matters. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, and it’s their opinion that really matters at the end of the day. Whether they want coffee or tea. So is there really an answer to which is better, or is it just a statement about people liking what they like? What do you think?
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