AS ANY foreigner can tell you, Americans love their coffee. It is a watered-down percolation compared with the eye-twitchingly strong varieties sold in little thimbles in many European cafés, but it is coffee nonetheless. A decent cup of tea, however, has been harder to find, though that is about to change.

With a shop on what seems like every urban corner, Starbucks is such a fixture in American life that you gauge a neighbourhood by how near you are to one of its coffee houses. Yet when it first started operating in 1971 it was known as "Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spice". In those very early days, 27 different kinds of loose-leaf teas were scooped from its store at Pike Place Market in Seattle. As it expanded it focused on coffee, retaining only a small offering of tea behind its counters.

Times were tough for tea aficionados parching for their favourite cuppa during the coffee boom, until 1997, when Teavana opened its first premises in Atlanta. It quickly grew, eventually selling a wide range of fine teas and tea paraphernalia in its 300 locations, though it mostly sells loose-leaf tea (you can also get a brew if you are prepared to wait). Then in 2003 Argo Tea was founded in an up-market neighbourhood in Chicago and is to tea what Starbucks is to coffee. Dotted around the country its stores are temples for tea drinkers, even carrying tea-flavoured food.

Tea is the second-most popular beverage in the world, after water. But most Americans still prefer to drink it iced, in many varieties, and have so far taken a different approach to hot tea. Coffee is part of the morning ritual to get going, iced tea is consumed with lunch, and in the evening botanicals and infusions, such as camomile, are drunk. Loose-leaf teas, so familiar in much of the the rest of the world, have not been that popular since 324 tea chests were dumped into Boston harbour in 1773.

But tastes change and interest in drinking hot tea is rising. Last year Starbucks paid $620m for Teavana and together they plan to take on the $90 billion "global hot and iced-tea category". Starbucks is opening its first Teavana-branded tea house that will sell hot tea (but no coffee) on October 24th, in New York’s Upper East Side. Cliff Burrows, the group president of Starbucks, thinks that buying Teavana will help it tap the growing market for drinking tea in many flavours and varieties. One reason for the brewing interest is that the younger generation, the millennials, have travelled to more exotic climes and discovered the world's favourite drink.

Like coffee and chocolate, teas have a rich history and background that the new stores will capitalise on. Mr Burrows was drinking a monkey-picked oolong as we spoke over the phone. (Starbucks has also come up with several other rather whizzy modern interpretations of tea, such as sparkling silver-needle iced tea and sparkling golden monkey.) Argo has done well selling hot tea to drink, but Starbucks is a force to be reckoned with. At the end of the year, when a second Starbucks tea house opens, in Seattle, it will become clearer whether Americans are ready to fall in love with tea again. And to give a (kind of) definitive ruling on the subject, Starbucks’s Mr Burrows thinks those who use milk in their tea should put it in after the tea has been poured into the cup, not before.

正如任何外國人可以告訴你的一樣，美國人熱愛咖啡。相比歐洲咖啡館里可以令人眼花繚亂各式各樣的小包裝，美國的咖啡是用水稀釋的濾煮法，不過這也是咖啡。然而，人們很難找到像樣的一杯茶，但這種情況即將改變。

美國式生活就是你永遠(yuǎn)可以在城市的角落找到一家星巴克，你所在的街區(qū)距離星巴克有多遠(yuǎn)可以衡量這個(gè)街區(qū)有多美國化。然而，1971年開張的時(shí)候，星巴克的店名卻是“星巴克咖啡、茶和香料”，早期在西雅圖的派克市場出售27種不同的散裝茶葉。隨著買賣的擴(kuò)大，星巴克專注于咖啡，出售的產(chǎn)品中，茶只占據(jù)很少的一部分。

在咖啡熱潮期間，茶葉愛好者很難喝到喜歡的茶。這種情況一直直持續(xù)到1997年，Teavana在亞特蘭大創(chuàng)辦了第一家直營店。它迅速發(fā)展并擁有300家店鋪，出售多品種的優(yōu)質(zhì)茶葉以及品茶用具，盡管其中大部分還是散裝茶葉（如果等候也可以烹茶）。2003年，Argo Tea茶館在芝加哥的高檔街區(qū)開店，成為茶館界的星巴克。其店鋪散布于全國各地，是茶愛好者的圣地，這些茶愛好者們甚至拿著茶味食品。

茶是世界第二受歡迎的飲料，僅次于白水。但是大多數(shù)美國人仍然更喜歡喝各種冰鎮(zhèn)茶飲，他們熱茶的方式也各不相同。早晨需要咖啡作為一天的開始，午餐時(shí)喝冰鎮(zhèn)茶飲，晚上則沏植物茶，比如甘菊。散裝茶葉在世界的大部分地區(qū)都很流行，在美國卻不是這樣，因?yàn)?773年，324箱茶葉被倒入波士頓港。

但是美國人的口味在變化，喝熱茶的興趣正在上升。2012年星巴克以6.2億美元收購了Teavana，并一起進(jìn)行900億美元的“全球熱茶及冰茶類別”計(jì)劃。星巴克于10月24日開設(shè)第一家Teavana品牌茶館，在紐約上東區(qū)銷售熱茶（不售咖啡）。星巴克總裁克里夫-巴羅斯認(rèn)為收購Teavana有助于其不斷開拓市場，提供不同味道和種類的茶飲。這么做是有利可圖的，因?yàn)槟贻p的一代（千禧一代）旅行經(jīng)歷過奇特的氣候并且發(fā)現(xiàn)世界上最受喜愛的飲料。

像咖啡和巧克力一樣，茶有著深厚的歷史和背景，可為新店所用。與我們做電話采訪時(shí)，巴羅斯先生喝著猴子采摘的烏龍茶。（星巴克也推出了一些詮釋現(xiàn)代意義的茶飲，比如銀針冰茶以及閃亮金猴。Argo的熱飲賣的很好，但是星巴克在熱飲方面已經(jīng)做得相當(dāng)不錯(cuò)。2013年年末，第二個(gè)星巴克茶館將在西雅圖運(yùn)營，美國人是否可以再次愛上茶飲這個(gè)問題也會(huì)變得更加清晰。如果要給這個(gè)問題一個(gè)（種）明確的規(guī)定，星巴克的巴羅斯認(rèn)為如果做奶茶，應(yīng)該先沏好茶，再加入牛奶，而不是在沏茶之前放牛奶。