Coffee

But, anyhow, now that American citizens have begun to criticize American tea, I feel emancipated from any vow of silence and free to state that an English lady of my acquaintance, on first becoming acquainted with the local beverage, said, "Well, if that's the sort of tea we sent them, I don't wonder they threw it into Boston Harbor." [...]

[...] still, the truth was that tea was not a national drink. The tables, including the tea-tables, were turned very rapidly on us by a comparison of coffee. I once made a fanciful parallel between drinks and doctrinal systems calling Protestantism beer, Catholicism wine, Agnosticism water ( a good thing if you get it clean), and the philosophy of Bernard Shaw black coffee, "which awakens but does not stimulate."

Professor William Lyon Phelps had it back on me by remarking, "I think coffee does stimulate; but then, of course, Mr. Chesterton was thinking of English coffee."

-April 10, 1935, The New York American [found in May/June 2015 issue of Gilbert magazine]