Though it is world’s second most popular drink, tea gets little respect in campus cafés

Next to water, the most widely-consumed beverage in the world is tea. Because tea is influenced by many factors, such as soil and production method, it is also beginning to gain recognition as a beverage that demands as much attention as wine.

At and around Columbia, there is a wide spectrum of tea options, ranging from the pedestrian—Lipton tea bags in John Jay Dining Hall to the more unusual bubble tea at Café East. At Brownie’s Café in Avery, over a dozen different kinds of hot teas are available and there are over 20 different bottled tea choices.

Oren’s Daily Roast may primarily brew coffee, but the café also offers a selection of Mighty Leaf and Republic of Tea blends. Further demonstrating tea’s omnipresence, both Westside Market and Morton Williams stock shelves upon shelves of boxed teas, not to mention the bottled tea selections.

Though Blue Java in Butler and Café 212 in Lerner offer chai, hot teas, and bottled teas, Columbia Dining’s tea options do not seem to appeal to many Columbia students. Several students complained that the tea offered is overpriced. Jian Wilson Dong, SEAS ’10, said, “I’ve never had tea here. It’s too expensive.” His solution is to make it himself, which seems a common trend among students. Sonal Noticewala, CC ’11, said that “Butler makes bad chai, so I bring my own tea from home.”

Columbia cafés churn out mass-produced cups, instead of giving tea the attention it arguably deserves. “When I ask for tea [in Lerner] all they do is give me a cup of hot water,” Robert Chang, SEAS ’12, said.

Perhaps it is not that tea is underappreciated by the Columbia student body itself, but rather that tea is not properly esteemed by many of the Columbia vendors on campus. It seems that discerning students will simply have to take advantage of the numerous off-campus offerings for a good cup of tea.