If you’re like me and many people I know, you love a good cup of coffee in the morning, perhaps a cup of tea in the afternoon, and maybe chocolate in the evening after dinner. Certain regions of the world are well-known for their production of coffee, tea, and chocolate, and in this blog I’ll let you know where those places are. I’ll also tell you about great places to enjoy these simple pleasures, and even places where you can learn about how these crops make it from the tender earth to your hands as a consumer.
A section on coffee can’t begin without discussing the crop and its profitability in the Americas. In our popular culture, we may recognize that Colombia (pictured: a coffee plantation in Pereira, in the Coffee Triangle) is a big coffee producer, with images of “Juan Valdez” in TV commercials still fresh in many people’s minds. Colombia is the world’s third-largest coffee producer, but far and away the largest producer of coffee in the world is Brazil, which produces nearly five times as much coffee as Colombia. The heart of Brazil’s coffee country is in Minas Gerais state. Honduras, Mexico, and Peru are also among the top ten coffee producers in the world. Mexican and Guatemalan coffees are earthy, with sweet and sometimes floral tones, compared to the lighter-bodied bean grown in Honduras, which tastes nuttier, and the Costa Rican and Panamanian beans, which present more essences of citrus. South American coffees are medium-bodied, with Colombian and Brazilian coffees sharing a common link of fruitier taste than other beans in South America. Peruvian coffee is earthier, chocolatier, and can be quite zesty, much like Panamanian beans. Further afield, Hawaii is also noted for its coffee, which boasts lower acidity levels in its beans, and notes of vanilla and brown sugar.
While the exact origins of coffee as a beverage are unable to be determined, two places stake their claims as the “birthplace” of coffee: Ethiopia and Yemen. Both countries claim chocolatey and full-bodied tastes from their beans (the mocha coffee bean is native to Yemen), but Yemen’s beans tend to have a wine-like acidity while Ethiopia’s beans tend to have floral notes. Other popular full-bodied coffee crops include Kenyan coffee with notes of citrus and herb; Sumatran coffee (pictured: a small coffee plantation near Lake Toba) with its strong, earthy taste; Javanese coffee (grown near Surabaya, Indonesia) with its low acidity and competing notes of chocolate, nuts, and vanilla; and coffees from India and New Guinea, which are very fruity. Indian coffee is primarily grown in Tamil Nadu state, and you can visit coffee plantations on day trips from Chennai. Chinese coffee, grown in Yunnan Province, is medium-bodied and very smooth. These beans are similar to Vietnamese-grown coffee you’ll find on day trips from Hanoi. The medium-bodied Australian coffee comes from many places, but particularly northern Queensland, within driving distance from Cairns. Australian coffee is known for giving drinkers a syrupy or juicy mouthfeel.
Did you know 1.4 billion cups of coffee are consumed each day worldwide? That’s a lot of coffee for sure! But how does the consumer normally get their hands on this coffee? The first natural response is that they buy coffee at the store to drink at home. Folgers is the top brand in the United States, and it was based for many decades out of San Francisco. The Folger Estate is open for tours today, but if you’re looking for a factory tour experience, Folgers roasts their beans at their factories in New Orleans. Maxwell House‘s roots are tied to Nashville, but its main factory, open to the public, is located in Jacksonville, Florida (pictured). Starbucks is the most popular coffee chain in the United States, and 50 years after they were first founded, their drinks are consumed worldwide. In 2014, Starbucks opened a love letter to the consumer, a museum-megastore hybrid called the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle; today Roastery locations are also open in Chicago, New York City, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Milan. Then there’s the world’s second-largest coffee chain, Costa Coffee, with over 2,300 locations and a new state-of-the-art roastery in Basildon, Essex, near Southend-on-Sea.
Seven cities worldwide stand out above the rest when it comes to how seriously they take “coffee culture“. Taipei, while well-known for bubble tea, is home to a fast-rising coffee culture, with consumption rising 20% with each year. Simple Kaffa (in Zhongzheng District) has been named the best coffeehouse in Asia and a great place to enjoy limited-batch Taiwanese blends as well as more common worldwide blends. Melbourne boasts not just the best scene in Australia but the entire world, with each neighborhood, from Collingwood to Brunswick, known for a unique “café feel”. It’s no surprise that the home of strong Cuban coffee would also be known for its cafés, but the Vedado neighborhood of Havana is world-renowned nonetheless. Vienna (pictured: coffee and treats at Demel, Kohlmarkt 14) has been known for its coffeehouse culture since the time of the Habsburgs, and today there are over 1,000 coffeehouses across the beautiful Austrian capital. Café Central (Herrengasse 14) and Café Landtmann (Universitätsring 4) are among the most popular.
Seattle is home to over 800 coffeeshops, clustered in Downtown, Capitol Hill, and the Denny Triangle. Apart from the aforementioned Starbucks Reserve Roastery, stop in at Anchorhead Coffee (inside CenturyLink Plaza) in the Denny Triangle, praised by locals and visitors as one of the best homegrown coffee shops. Italian coffee culture has been around longer than even Viennese, and it is perhaps the most storied of all the coffee cultures worldwide. Rome is the epicenter of it all, with the local culture centered around a strong espresso consumed at the shop counter. Some of the best coffeehouses in Rome are, among others, Sant’ Eustachio Il Caffè (Piazza di Sant’ Eustachio 82) and La Casa Del Caffè Tazza D’oro (Via degli Orfani 84). Finally, don’t sleep on Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. Icelandic people consume more coffee per capita than all but three nations, and Reykjavik is home to a budding mom-and-pop café scene (pictured: a sign for a local café). Reykjavik Roasters (Brautarholt 2) is where we recommend stopping in for a coffee and a delicious pastry.
(Pictured: The Tokyo Roastery)
Now on to the subject of tea. We must discuss the world’s two largest tea producers first, and of course those are China and India. Tea as a beverage originated from China, if legend is to be believed, as an herbal remedy for Emperor Shen Nung in the year 2737 BCE. China produces many varieties of tea, and the vast majority consumed is green tea. China is also known for its production of black, oolong, yellow, and white teas. In China, tea is grown in the south and southeast of the country. Green tea production is heaviest around Hangzhou and Suzhou, south of the Yangtze River. The provinces of Anhui, Fujian, and Yunnan are also famous for their teas. China’s most famous teas include Dragon Well green tea, grown by a lake near Hangzhou (pictured: the Longjing Tea Plantation); Huangshan Maofeng green tea, renowned for its high quality, grown in Anhui Province; also from Anhui, Keemun black tea, one of the more popular black teas we consume in the West; Anxi Tie Guan Yin oolong tea, considered the best of its kind in the world, from Fujian Province; and Dayi fermented pu-erh tea from Yunnan Province.
India grows black, green, and white teas, as well as their own Assam and Darjeeling teas. Darjeeling is a town and Assam is a state in the extreme northeast of India, nestled in the Himalayan foothills about three or four hours by car north of Kolkata. Darjeeling tea is picked in four “flushes” per year (one such “flush” is pictured), including tea leaves at various stages of maturity, to produce a distinct floral taste. Assam tea is known for its bold and somewhat malt-like taste, and is popularly used as a breakfast tea in places such as Ireland. Other popular teas from India include the light, lower-caffeine Nilgiri tea, grown in Tamil Nadu about two hours southwest of Bangalore; Sikkim tea, a cousin of Darjeeling tea known for its toasty and floral notes; and limited-batch Kangra tea, grown in Himachal Pradesh, a couple hours north of Delhi by car. (Note: Those coming to look for chai should note that chai is a way to make tea as a beverage and not a tea leaf, even though we have “chai” tea bags we consume stateside.)
There are a few places around the world where tea production is very high outside of India and China. Of course there are their neighbors and immediate trading partners, such as Nepal, South Korea, Vietnam, Japan, and Taiwan. Taiwan is well-known for its oolong production, found in the interior of the country just a day trip from Kaohsiung. Nearly all of these countries produce large quantities of green tea, although Sri Lanka‘s Kandy region (east of Colombo) and extreme eastern Nepal are also noted for their black teas. Black and green teas are also grown in the mountains of the Caucasus, in nations like Georgia, Turkey, and Iran. Indonesia is a leading tea producer, exporting black and oolong teas from plantations near Medan on Sumatra and near Jakarta on Java. New Zealand produces oolong tea at the Zealong Tea Estate just outside Hamilton. Kenya is one of the world’s top black tea exporters, with tea regions near Lake Victoria and to the north of Nairobi. Argentina leads the world in production of yerba maté (pictured), a highly-caffeinated tea made from holly leaves. The region south of Iguazu Falls in northern Argentina is the epicenter of yerba maté production. Paraguay, Uruguay, and southern Brazil are also well-known for their maté.
How do some of the world’s most popular tea brands get to you, the consumer, at home? You may drink popular brands like Lipton, Tetley, Twinings, Bigelow, Celestial Seasonings, and PG Tips, but where does that tea come from and where can you learn more about it? Twinings has a small museum dedicated to the Indian-sourced tea brand located in its flagship store on The Strand in London (pictured). Bigelow is the only tea company to source its leaves in the United States, at the Charleston Tea Garden on Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina. Celestial Seasonings uses teas from all over the world, and their factory in Boulder, Colorado is open to the public. As of this writing, Unilever still owns the widely popular Lipton and PG Tips brands, which primarily use black tea leaves from Sri Lanka and Kenya. Lipton processes its tea in factories in Sri Lanka and in Suffolk, Virginia, near Norfolk, Hampton, and Virginia Beach. PG Tips produces their tea at Trafford Park in Manchester, England. Tetley, one of the world’s largest brands, has its main factory in Eaglescliffe, southwest of Middlesbrough in northern England.
The best places to relax with a nice cup of tea are all places with strong tea-drinking cultures. England has been at the epicenter of tea production and consumption for hundreds of years, due to colonial ambitions in places like India, Sri Lanka, and Kenya. London is the place to go for a proper tea experience (pictured), complete with finger foods like cucumber sandwiches and Victoria sponge cake. Food critics rave about the afternoon teas at Park Room (86-90 Park Lane), Claridge’s (55 Brook Street), The Ritz London (150 Piccadilly) and Fortnum & Mason (181 Piccadilly). You can try yerba maté straight from the source, by driving hours down from Iguazu Falls, or you can try it while you are in Buenos Aires. La Payuca (Avenida Santa Fe 2587, Recoleta), Las Cabras (Fitz Roy 1795, Palermo), and Las Cholas (Arce 306, Las Cañitas) are the top places for maté in the Argentine capital. China is known for its beautiful tea houses in every major city, so you don’t have to trek to Anhui or Fujian for a traditional and delicious tea experience. The Lao She Teahouse in Beijing, the Old Shanghai Tea House, the Hu Pan Ju Teahouse in Hangzhou, the Tao Tao Ju Teahouse in Guangzhou, and the Lin Heung Tea House in Hong Kong are all places you should stop if you are in any of these Chinese cities on your next Tripmasters vacation.
Japan, like China, is famous for its ritualistic tea ceremonies (pictured), and Kyoto is the epicenter of green tea production in the country, so it makes sense that it has some of the best tea houses. The Ihoan Tea Hut in Kodaiji Temple, as well as Kasagiya and Camellia, both near Kiyomizu-dera Temple, are standouts. To become one with nature, head to Kosoan in Meguro-ku in Tokyo, housed inside a charming prewar traditional dwelling. For a high-end and modern tea experience, Tokyo Saryo in Setagaya-ku is for you. Nakajima-no-ochaya inside Hamarikyu Gardens is also a popular choice. We can’t ignore India in this conversation, and one doesn’t have to go to Darjeeling to get the country’s best tea. Condé Nast Traveller in particular raves about the Tea Centre near Churchgate in Mumbai, where you can go to relax, and the faster-paced Infinitea on Cunningham Road in Bangalore. Lastly, one country we can’t ignore in a tea discussion is Morocco, where tea is probably consumed more than water. The Tchaba Tea House and the Riad Yima in Marrakech are two of the top tea houses in the country, while Tangier is known for its tea terraces. For a luxurious experience, go to the L’Amandier Palais Faraj in Fez.
Chocolate is made from ground and roasted cacao (or cocoa) beans (pictured), which are native to Mexico. Chocolate has been consumed as a solid food and as a beverage in modern-day Mexico since at least 1000 BCE. The states of Tabasco and Chiapas produce nearly all of Mexico’s cacao, and those plantations can be toured as day trips from Palenque or San Cristobal de las Casas. Other leading producers of cacao in the Americas include Ecuador, which hosts a number of plantations in and around Manta and Guayaquil, and Brazil, whose growing regions include Pará State, east of Manaus, and the “Cocoa Coast” of Bahia state, stretching south from Salvador to Espirito Santo state. Other important cacao-growing regions of the world include the Ivory Coast and Ghana, world leaders in cacao production, and Malaysia and Indonesia. Cacao plantations can be found nationwide in Malaysia but are particularly clustered on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia.
Nearly all of the major chocolate manufacturers in the world source at least some of their cacao from fair-trade agreements like the Rainforest Alliance, which pays farmers in Africa, Asia, and the Americas a livable wage for their crops and invests in the farms to help them grow their own businesses. You can see how the chocolate reaches you, the consumer, by attending many of the factory tours of top brands around the world. Mars, makers of M&Ms and other candies, offers a factory tour in Hackettstown, New Jersey, halfway between New York City and Allentown, Pennsylvania. Hershey is a brand name that needs no introduction, nor does the Hershey’s Chocolate World (pictured) tour that’s open to the public daily in Hershey, Pennsylvania, just outside Harrisburg. Mondelez, owners of such brands as Nabisco and Cadbury, have many places you can visit. There’s Cadbury World, just outside Birmingham, England, the Mondelez headquarters and factory complex in Chicago, and the Gladstone factory in Metro Toronto. Nestlé boasts two museums, one in Vevey, Switzerland and one in Toluca, Mexico, and prime product placement at York‘s Chocolate Story in Yorkshire, England.
Lindt, known for their famous truffles, welcomes all chocolate lovers to the Lindt Home of Chocolate in Kilchberg, Switzerland, south of Zürich, as well as the Chocolate Museum in Cologne, Germany (pictured). The family behind Godiva opened the Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate in the De Valck building on the Grand Place in Brussels, and it’s definitely a spot to learn about, taste, and savor their decadent chocolate. Osaka is home to two important confection spots: the Glico Museum (makers of Pocky) and the Meiji Factory. Glico also has a factory open to tours in Chiba, east of Tokyo. Ghirardelli once made its delicious chocolate on Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, and while the chocolate factory itself is no longer there, Ghirardelli still maintains a flagship presence on the square of its birth. Finally, I have to mention Ferrero, makers of Rocher and Nutella; go to Alba, Italy, southeast of Turin, even if you won’t be able to tour the factory, just to experience the smell of chocolate and hazelnuts wafting in the air.
Now which cities are the best for chocolate lovers? Hands-down the answer is Brussels, which wears its “Chocolate Capital of the World” superlative badge with honor. Apart from Godiva, you must try the Belgian chocolates (pictured) at Passion Chocolat (Bodenbroekstraat 2/4) and Laurent Gerbaud (Rue Ravenstein 2D). France is also well-known for its chocolate, with some of the best places in Paris including Edwart Chocolatier (locations on 244 Rue de Rivoli and 17 Rue Vieille du Temple), La Maison du Chocolat (go to the location on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré), and Chocolate Alain Ducasse (40 Rue de la Roquette). Make time for a trip to Tain-l’Hermitage, on the Rhône River south of Lyon. It is home to the Valrhona École Chocolat, perhaps the finest confectionery school in the world, as well as to the Valrhona Chocolate Factory. You can go to Zürich or Vevey for chocolate while you’re in Switzerland, but don’t pass up Broc, a town on the road from Vevey to Bern that is absolutely devoted to chocolate.
I’m pretty hungry and thirsty after writing this article, so you must be ravenous after reading it! Get yourself some coffee or tea and a nice piece of chocolate and head over to Tripmasters.com, where you can make your own sweet-tooth vacation a reality. We offer vacations to destinations in over 120 countries and territories throughout the world.
