@turbobureaucrat And surprisingly they haven’t been at it terribly long as these things go: only about 100 years.
As I understand it, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed, their coffee pipeline (to Yemen, principally) went with it. The new regime decided tea was something more dependable, since they could grow it in the hills along the Black Sea coast.
More evidence for the law of conservation of caffeine?
@babelcarp, does this law have a beautiful page on the Internet?😃
It's the time of discoveries for me in this thread!
Tea has a magical characteristic to become a national drink. UK, Russia, and Turkey are just 3 countries popping up in my memory where the tea is thought this way.