Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea

I remember, when I was a young married woman with a small child, having morning coffee with women friends. It started off as just coffee & biscuits, but ended up as coffee & gateau as everyone tried to outdo everyone else. At that point I think I stopped going. Too much pressure & not relaxing at all. 

Coffee was supposedly discovered by an Ethiopian goat herder, Kaldi, after he noticed his goats became more energetic after eating the berries of certain trees. If you want to know more this is a link;-

https://stonestreetcoffee.com/blogs/brooklyn-coffee-academy/the-history-of-coffee

The first recorded coffee house in England was opened by a Turkish man Jacob in Oxfordshire in 1652. This was followed by the first in London in that same year, established by a Greek man Pasqua Rosee. 

https://oldspikeroastery.com/blogs/blog/history-of-london-coffee-houses

Coffeehouses were "penny universities" where politicians, artists, writers and other intellectuals  met, each frequenting their own establishments. They were places of discussion, knowledge sharing & a hub for creative ideas. Many influential historic individuals met there including Samuel Pepys, John Dryden, Samuel Alexander Pope and Isaac Newton. 

I really don't feel properly alive until I've had my morning cup of coffee & I look forward to it every day. Friends I meet for coffee carry on the tradition of interesting discussion.

Afternoon tea is a whole different thing to my mind. Drinking tea began in China & Charles II started the habit in England. But afternoon tea didn't begin until 1840, started again by the aristocracy. It became a fashionable social event for the upper classes.

https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Afternoon-Tea/

My experience of afternoon tea is a mug of tea using a teabag & occasionally a biscuit. I drink it playing Solitaire on my iPad or reading. Sometimes friends & family come, but it isn't really an event, it's a pleasure. What I really don't understand is why a very upper class tradition continues today, mostly in the middle classes. 

According to the British Social Attitudes Survey we still define ourselves in terms of social divisions. We have a monarchy and an aristocracy still owning much of the land the Conqueror gave them, with privileges reinforced by public schools. We also have a working class, inheritors of serfdom, for whom trade union leaders such as Mick Lynch, who just like Watt Tyler, sees it as his role to fight. 

Is this really a good thing in the 21st century? Are we hidebound by "tradition" & the mores of the upper classes? I think we are if we continue to think that apeing the behaviour of a supposedly higher class is sensible or necessary. Shouldn't we want to be a meritocracy? Shouldn't we value people for who they are and what they do, rather than where or to whom they were born?