Cup takes

You groan in dismay when, for some reason, you don't get the chance to drink your favourite cup of coffee or tea in the morning. And depending what your choice is - the frustration can be mild (if you're a tea drinker) or strong (if you're a coffee drinker). While the former could simply make a face, get grumpy and put on the kettle, the latter could quite possibly throw a fit until the coffee machine kick starts itself in pure panic. Deprivation may be the common factor but the reactions are very different. Although I personally prefer tea, I promise to show no bias as I bring together a few people from the two opposing camps for a face-off. Will victory be more than a storm in a cup? Let's find out.

Abi Burgess switched from coffee to tea more than a year ago. Burgess liked her coffee strong and needed about three cups a day. But when she got pregnant, she found out she couldn't stomach it anymore.

"I'd get the shakes when I drank coffee. I was put off and had to completely stop," says this freelance interior designer and mum of two from Richmond, Britain. Burgess sees a major change in her personality since shifting loyalty. "I was more charged up when I drank coffee. If I drank coffee while driving, I was far more stressed and edgy. It would get me aggravated, annoyed and super tense."

Tea has helped Burgess become far more relaxed. She now drinks about four cups of tea a day and ends the day with a cup of green tea or camomile. "I don't feel the knots tensing up my shoulders any more. I don't get worked up while driving. At night, I find herbal tea calms my nerves. It doesn't give you the boost coffee does."

Burgess and her friends are at the home of their common friend Samm Schnoor, curled up on sofas and arguing in between bouts of laughter about whether coffee drinkers are wired and ready to explode any moment, while tea drinkers are chilled out folks who have perfected grace under pressure.

Schnoor, known among her friends for whipping up scrumptious cup cakes and birthday cakes in her business, SimpleeDelicious, needs three to five cups of coffee a day to keep her going. "I need that cuppa even before my eyes open. I don't know whether it's psychological, but it does pick me up. An espresso boosts my spirits even more," she says.

Like many staunch coffee lovers, she does drink the occasional jasmine or green tea at night. "It's not a ritual," she is quick to clarify, as if it were an infringement. But limiting her regular dose of coffee would make her "sluggish, slow. It's as if something important is missing," she explains.

This South African expat and mother of three dismisses even the slightest suggestion that coffee drinkers are more aggressive. "I wouldn't say we are (more aggressive), I'd say we are more vibrant than tea drinkers. They can be a bit...," she trails off, searching for a polite word in deference to her tea drinking friends in the room. She finally finds the right words: "Tea drinkers are more chilled out, more Zen-like."

Fatima Keegan is fine with this description. "I'll take chilled out, that's fine. Most coffee drinkers I know tend to be hyper," says this financial manager. Keegan likes her tea strong and drinks up to three cups a day. Can she get by a day without a cup of tea?

"No, I can't. It would drive me nuts," she says. A mother of two girls, coffee doesn't do much for her. "It's funny when people say caffeine keeps them feeling on top of the world. It doesn't work for me; in fact coffee does nothing for me."

Jodi Boys, from Newcastle, Australia, likes both beverages. The ballet teacher decides the brew she would like to have based on the time of day. "In the morning and during the day, it's coffee. But before I go to bed, it's a cup of tea. It is a ritual. I find it calming."

A lot of our choices, Boys says, can depend on memories from our childhood. She believes her mother's love for a cup of tea has probably had an impact on her.

"In my family it was always tea. I may have inherited my habit of a nightly cup of tea from my mother."

But Karen Stock will have none of this hereditary logic. Now a full-time mum, she holds her cup of coffee tightly - even though back in her native land, Britain, the teapot holds a revered place in people's daily ritual. Of course drinking coffee does not mean she is more aggressive than her husband (you guessed it, he drinks tea) but the beverage definitely gets her going. "Energised" is the word she likes to use. She is certain she wants a cup of coffee to wake her up and start her day.

Tea drinkers like Keegan and Boys feel that it is hard to find a good cup of tea in town, rather than a cup of coffee. "I like my tea strong and I normally don't get that," says Keegan.

"What I get instead is a watered-down version that's horrible." The trouble of having to dunk two extra tea bags to ramp up the strength of the cuppa is just so frustrating. And unneccesary!

Ali Tumbi understands that sentiment very well. Being a tea lover and one of Dubai's entrepreneurs, Tumbi's search for the perfect cup of tea led him to launch his own tea house - Propah Tea.

Three outlets are already pouring out this finely brewed delight in Dubai and two more outlets are planned for Abu Dhabi later this year.

He believes that a really good cup of tea is not yet easily available in the UAE, although a majority of UAE nationals, Indians, Pakistanis and Britons in the UAE are tea drinkers. "There is a very large demographic that drinks tea but it needs to be available just as much as coffee.Many cultures drink tea but for a truly good cup they need to make one at home. There are all sorts of coffees available at many outlets in malls but a decent sulaimani or kadak chai (ultra strong tea that's a typical preference for people from the subcontinent) is hard to find."

Tumbi, who's from Pakistan and was schooled in Jeddah and later attended the University of Texas, Austin, arrived in the UAE to fill the gap himself. At his outlets, traditional blends stand alongside exotic concoctions such as the Hawaii Cocktail, a shot of tea mixed with frozen yoghurt.

For an authentic touch, kadak chai is served in clay pots and Moroccan tea in the traditional metal pot.

At his outlet, customers can watch the sand trickle down in the hourglass that makes for a neat timer marking just how long to let the tea leaves stand in the hot water, while at another table people wait till the petals of a flowering jasmine lily uncurl and infuse the liquid in the teapot with a molten gold. Reeling off the health benefits of tea from antioxidant properties to anti-ageing strengths, Ali says his love for tea can be traced back to his parents preference for this brew. They liked their tea green and strong.

"I was never a tea lover but a tea follower," he explains. So does he serve coffee at his tea houses? "Yes, we serve good coffee. It's not that I don't like or never drink coffee, there's no bias but drinking tea has multiple health benefits." To prove his point, he says he even serves up an espresso with a twist - a green tea shot.

Coffee man Khaldoon Dirani says he is fine with this ‘contradiction'. Until recently, Khaldoon rated the coffee he drank, jotting down scores on his mobile phone according to taste, flavour, strength and presentation. This helped him rank coffee houses in the UAE and around the world that serve good coffee. And then he lost his mobile phone. Today he relies on memory to steer clear of outlets that he recalls earned low scores.

An industrial engineer by profession, Khaldoon works with an international candy maker and is happy to confess that "without coffee I feel like I'm still asleep." And that sense of sleepiness soon turns into a headache. "Coffee unlocks my energy."

He started drinking coffee early - sipping from his parents' Turkish black coffee or funjan. "I liked the bitterness," he recalls. Once in a while though he will reach out for a cup of tea.

Since the debate seems to have settled into concessions, he decides to stir things up a bit. "In my opinion, a real coffee drinker is someone who drinks strong black or espresso. Tea drinkers like sweet things, it's like a child enjoying sweet things," he says. "If you dip a bag in a cup of hot milk it turns into another variation of an average cup of milk. After one or two spoons of sugar, anyone - even a baby will like it. Coffee, on the other hand, is an acquired taste. Few will like it the first time."

That almost reaches the tone of a battle cry but the field is empty of armies at this point. Each one has said what they feel and Amy Smith, an administrator at the Shaikh Mohammad Centre for Cultural Understanding takes the tug-of-war to a place where it acquires a whole new dimension.

"The world is an ugly place without this first cup of tea. The birds stop singing, the sky darkens and people run for cover to get out of my way." Aggression is now bereft of monopolistic claims by coffee drinkers. Is it the brew or the brain? You decide.

Well, it was a heartfelt ‘battle'. Not too many spills but it's time for the white flag to be raised. Dr Melanie C. Schlatter, a consultant health psychologist with Well Woman Clinic, says coffee has been shown to help memory and concentration but the levels of caffeine in coffee are much stronger. A coffee drinker herself, she believes tea pips coffee to the post. And it's simply because, with too much coffee comes anxiety.

FACTOIDS

The way people drink a beverage is interesting.

Avid coffee drinkers will never add milk, many will consider it an insult to even add sugar. Some tea drinkers keep sugar cubes in their mouth and then swirl the tea around.

The Middle East accounts for a quarter of global tea imports with Dubai at the heart of the trade, says the Dubai Tea Trading Centre. The Speciality Coffee and Tea Convention says the tea industry is worth $200 million (about Dh734.6 million) a year across the Middle East.

Khulood Al Atiyat, Emirati events & public relations director at the Shaikh Mohammad Centre for Cultural Understanding (above right), says both beverages are popular among Emiratis in the region. "Each drink has their separate time. For example, we drink coffee first thing when we arrive at people's houses as guests, or business meetings. However tea is the popular choice after lunch or dinner. "

She sees people with various cultural preferences. For instance, Morocco is known for Moroccan Tea, Turkey for Turkish Coffee. "The Gulf countries are known for their Arabic coffee, which is very light and rich in cardamom and saffron and sometimes cloves." Khulood herself drinks four to five cups of Arabic coffee first thing in the morning when she comes into work and ends the evening with a latte or macchiato. She believes she can get through the day without her favourite drink but likes the aroma of coffee. "I just feel like smelling and tasting Arabic coffee first thing in the morning; it sets the mood for the rest of the day. I enjoy the strong taste of cardamom and cloves. I love the combination of a sweet date, topped with a sip of bitter coffee. It's the ultimate mood setter."