Why my family in Deerfield, Massachusetts didn't drink tea during the Revolutionary War



I like coffee, but nowadays if I were to order tea at my local coffee shop, chances are very slim that I would be tarred and feathered and run out of town. But in Deerfield, Massachusetts in 1776, I wouldn't even think about drinking tea, and especially brewing it where my neighbors might smell it.

I know that my family in Deerfield, Greenfield, and Cheapside were revolutionaries, not loyalists, because they were on what was called a "Committees of Safety". No one there at the time was the right age for military service, but people like my gggggrandfather Daniel Nash would have been keeping an eye out for for anyone who showed that they disagreed with the local political views.

The American Revolution was very popular, especially in the rural areas, but of course there were people who disagreed with it. I've done as much research as I can on my family in Trenton, and I have my suspicions about them, they may or may not have been loyalists.

But in Deerfield you really wouldn't have lasted very long as a loyalist. This was wartime, and if you decided to do something as dumb as hanging out a Union Jack, or brewing tea, your neighbors would be very upset with you. Whether you would actually be tarred and feathered I really have no idea, although it was a popular practice at the time, but you certainly wouldn't feel welcomed.

So almost overnight coffee replaced tea in the American colonies. Brewing coffee was a very different smell from brewing tea!
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