When coffee enters the country of tea

As a Western proverb goes, "whatever you eat is what you eat." (You are what you eat.) By the same token, you can also say, "whatever you drink is what you drink" (You are what you drink.). A person, or even a nation's drink, will soak out that person, or the character of that nation.

If tea is the drink of the East, then coffee is the drink of the West (although the origin and distribution of coffee is not limited to the West). Therefore, the character of China is tea and the character of the West is coffee.

Since they are all products of the earth and absorb the essence of the sun and the moon, coffee and tea have something in common, that is, they are exciting and rational, especially compared with wine. There are poets (such as Li Bai), writers (such as Hemingway), and even presidents (such as Yeltsin), but scientists and philosophers (Socrates is fond of drinking but not addicted to alcohol). On the contrary, drinking tea and coffee, you can think clearly and act rationally.

Some people say that intellectuals in the modern sense were born in the 18th century, and they grew up drinking coffee. A French cafe called Prokopu has walked out of the three giants of the Enlightenment-Voltaire, Russo and Diderot. Similarly, although Chinese history is also strong alcoholic smell, intoxicated in the production of poetry, but also infected with blood, but the power of light tea is more ancient. In the dense fragrance of tea, China has produced the humanistic feelings of Confucianism, the philosophical thinking of Tao, and the ethereal wisdom of Zen.

However, there is still a big difference between coffee and tea. Tea trees grow in the mist-shrouded landscape, with yang and yin, which are introverted and do not go to extremes. The small teapot dissolves the golden mean, the quintessence of Chinese thousands of years of culture. The "gentle" nationality of the Chinese people (in the words of Gu Hongming) is made with a touch of tea. In a cup of tea, the Chinese have promoted harmony and defused hatred. The Chinese nation used "Kungfu Tea" to defend the quintessence of five thousand years of culture and dissolve many invasions of different races.

Coffee is different. Although coffee is not as intense as wine, it is strong and fragrant, and it is also an extreme. The French diplomat Talleran once said: "the best coffee should be black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love." Good and evil, beauty and ugliness are both extremes in a cup of coffee. Therefore, the publicity of Western character and the progress of Western culture are revealed in the coffee. Napoleon, is to drink coffee to conquer. In western economics, "maximization" or "optimization" is its ultimate pursuit: enterprises pursue the maximization of profits and consumers pursue the maximization of utility. This is shown incisively and vividly in American coffee culture.

In Europe, coffee is more light and leisurely, with a cup of coffee with an afternoon sun, reading or talking. However, in the United States, it is more common to see office workers hurrying into the office with a cup of coffee in hand to work all day in front of the computer. In Europe, coffee shops are mostly small shops with their own amorous feelings. In the United States, Starbucks is an empire with 20, 000 stores and a market capitalization of more than $20 billion. Its tentacles have even reached the stronghold of coffee. In France and Italy, it symbolizes the power of American business culture.

When China opens its doors and the East encounters the West, tea and coffee are doomed to fight, which is also a battle between the two nationalities. In China, more and more tea shops are opened, tea is sold better and better, and tea culture has become a prominent school in the popularity of officials and scholars. But in silence, coffee is also expanding its presence in China. Starbucks, like KFC and McDonald's, has become the new totem of the West.

When coffee enters the country of tea, the character of the Chinese people is also quietly changing. From introverted to flamboyant, from conservative to open. In the uproar of Chinese tourists flocking abroad, in overseas shelves full of "made in China", and in the aggressive edge of the post-80s and post-90s generation, we smell the stronger and stronger aroma of coffee.

To say that coffee will replace tea is as absurd as to say that tea will replace coffee. Because we have also seen that tea also shows its charm in the West and dominates the market. Therefore, the result of the contest between tea and coffee in China should be a win-win situation for both. There will be more and more teahouses and coffee shops. More importantly, a balance should be found between the publicity of coffee and the introversion of tea.

For this reason, maybe we should drink coffee with tea, a cup of Starbucks in the morning and a pot of Pu'er at noon?