Coffee Mates: Three Irish roasters on the growing popularity of coffee
Coffee Mates
Back in Ireland in the 80s, everyone drank tea. Men, women, children, all drank tea. Mostly, it was called ‘tae’, stewed over turf embers in the darkest corner of shebeens, until strong enough to trot a mouse on. If you didn’t live in a shebeen or have a turf fire, you stewed it on the cooker. People drank it from dawn til dusk and sometimes even got up in the middle of the night for a cup of tea. Statistics and facts were regularly brandished, noting the world-beating, tae-drinking antics of the Gael, more tea put away per capita than anywhere else in the world, or something to that nature. I’m pretty sure people also drank tea after they died.
Certain cafes and tea houses served “cappuccinos” but this was mostly instant coffee topped with foamed milk, unless you went to Bewley’s, in Dublin. In those days, all Cork people needed when they went to Dublin was another All-Ireland trophy.
