Why John Adams called tea un-American

A closer look

If you wonder why America runs on bean water instead of leaf soup like the British, blame the revolution. After the Boston Tea Party in 1773, drinking tea was deemed unpatriotic and highly sympathetic to the British Crown. John Adams famously declared tea an 'un-American' beverage. The colonists aggressively pivoted to coffee as an act of political defiance, fundamentally altering the country's caffeine addiction for the rest of history.