Proposal: Coffee
Brewing coffee and brewing tea requires a lot of overlapping skill sets and interest. A lot of people who are coffee lovers are also tea lovers and most cafes sell both.
Or better yet, it could be things like "brewed beverages". Otherwise there's only a limited number of questions for both.
Coffee and Tea should not be combined, as the advantage of focus would immediately be lost. The major components of coffee include:
Of those major categories, the only potential for overlap is in the brewing section. Pour over and French press methods can be used for both. Espresso, however, which is the more complex and therefore more knowledge intensive method, has no overlap.
That being said, coffee and tea should not be combined.
I think it would be beneficial to include Tea. It broadens the user base without going too far. Often, but not always, people interested in coffee are also interested in tea, but are not always the same people. Including Tea in the proposal definitely widens the user base without widening the scope of the site to all beverages. I think it would remain sufficiently focused that way.
Tea and coffee share much in common. I recommend combining the sites for several reasons:
1) Popular flavored teas (like Chai) share a lot in common with coffee in terms of additives and flavors.
2) Both are warm beverages that serve the same social function. Every restaurant and social event serves both together (despite not serving other beverages like beer or lemonade).
3) A new method of making tea popularized by "The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf" uses a espresso-like procedure to make their tea. So procedurally, coffee and tea are beginning to have more in common.
While both arguments are correct, we need to keep in mind the differences as well: history, culture, cultivation and preparation methods, ...
I would keep them separate.
Tea, Coffee, Cocktails, and Beer should be merged to make one Beverage SE. I've created it here:
