The Boston Tea Party was the beginning of The United States of America, a coffee society. Coffee is everywhere in America. You'll find it in almost every American home, including every restaurant, grocery shop, gas station and airport. Early colonial settlers enjoyed coffee. Coffee was a preferred hot drink for colonial settlers, who were mostly from England, which is a country that mainly drinks tea.
Colonists were furious when the British taxed tea imports to colonies and gave the British East India Company the exclusive right to trade in the tea. John Adams wrote to his wife: "Tea must all be renounced and I must weane, the sooner the better." The unofficial boycott of tea in (then British Colonies) began at this point. People came together and pledged to stop serving coffee in their homes. This act of solidarity quickly spread throughout the Colonies, and people started to associate coffee with Revolutionary Warfare. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 was the result of colonists throwing barrels of British tea into the harbour and overboard. Ironically, this act was apparently planned at a coffee shop. The Revolutionary War ended in 1783.
Tea was a British specialty in the late 1800s. It was a favorite drink of the King and Queen, as well as all royalty. The entire population loved tea. The East India Company, which was British, dominated the tea trade. British tea farmers were being set up in India and Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). Because tea was so closely linked to Britain, it was considered a sin to boycott British culture. The Boston Tea Party made it a patriotic duty to drink coffee over tea. This idea was reinforced by the Revolutionary War. Refusing British products represented the rejection of British dominance.
It began to seep into homes, and soldiers also enjoyed it. General William Smallwood listed 1,500 pounds coffee as one of the "most essential [items]" to purchase immediately for south regiments in 1781. Some people returned to drinking tea after the war, but coffee shops remained popular. American work and lifestyles also made the country a nation known for its caffeine culture.
It's amazing to see how a political movement that was over 200 years old helped create something so simple as coffee.