WI: France Becomes Europe's Premier Tea-Drinking Country, Britain Remains a Coffee Nation.

What would be the economic, social, and political consequences if France developed a taste for tea in the early 18th Century, while Britain stuck with eau d'soot? Did France even have enough of a trading presence in the far east to make widespread consumption of tea plausible?
 
Britain was a vast consumer of coffee until a crop shortage caused a massive shortfall, luckily the BEIC had access to tea to fill the caffeine void and the rest is history.
Removing the coffee famine should stop the switchover and if tea is seen as French that may help!
Getting France more into tea is hard given their better access to coffee via the Ottomans and intermediaries.
 
France gains hegemony over India. Britain goes on to conquer the East Indies from the Dutch. The Indies go on to produce the majority of the worlds coffee while France becomes tea-addicted for the same reasons Britain became in OTL.
 
France gains hegemony over India. Britain goes on to conquer the East Indies from the Dutch. The Indies go on to produce the majority of the worlds coffee while France becomes tea-addicted for the same reasons Britain became in OTL.
Britain's taste for tea developed when India produced no tea at all, and had to import everything from China. So the French need enough territory to retain a presence in the Far East, but not necessarily Indian supremacy.
 
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