Did coffee fuel the Boston Tea Party?

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Looking up the Boston Tea Party, I was amazed to learn the tax on tea was had really gone down; it was cheaper. Our founders were angry not only about taxation without representation, but that the East Indian Tea Company was foundering, and to prop it up, was given exclusive rights to bring tea to the colonists, angering independent importers. When reading National Public Radio’s history report on the Boston Tea Party, I was amazed to learn that coffee had been here as long as tea, and the instigators of the Boston Tea Party may have made their plans in a coffee house. Maybe drinking tea was more refined and cultured, but loading up potential revolutionaries on cups of coffee in male-only coffee houses may have gotten them even more riled up.