Changes

It seems that coffee had become well established as a popular drink in Poland by Mickiewicz's time. After all, as you may remember from [[What has the Battle of Vienna given us?|my post about the Battle of Vienna]], the Poles had learned to enjoy coffee already back in the 17th century – from the Ottoman Turks, whom the Polish forces so valiantly vanquished. Or did they? Would they really ape the habits of their enemies? Let's see what another Polish poet had to write about what he called ''kaffa'' two centuries before Mickiewicz:

{{Cytat

| <poem>In Malta, I recall, we have sampled ''kaffa'',

All other Slavic languages except Polish, that is. The Polish word for tea is ''herbata'', which comes from Latin ''herba thea'', or "tea herb". But it couldn't be that simple. The word for tea may have come from the west, but the word for "kettle" – ''czajnik'' – comes from Russian. Why isn't it called ''herbatnik'', you might ask. Well, this word is already taken; it refers to a biscuit to be served with tea.

As you could see in the map (or mug) at the top of this post, there are only two predominantly tea-drinking regions in Europe: the British Isles in the west and the former Russian Empire in the east. The English tea-drinking tradition dates back to the times when the commodity was still being imported from Asia almost exclusively by Dutch and Portuguese merchants. The first batch of tea appeared in England in 1657, but it's the 1662 marriage of King Charles II, who grew up in the Netherlands, to the Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza, that is remembered as the birth of the English tea-drinking culture. Catherine, in particular, was known for inviting her guests for a light meal centered on tea and cakes at (you guessed it) five o'clock.