[Avodah] Can I make Kiddush or Havdalah on a cup of coffee or tea?

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Oct 01, 2021 at 07:15:25PM +0000, Prof. L. Levine via Avodah wrote:
> On the other hand, the Aruch Hashulchan (OC 296:13), Igeros Moshe (OC
> 2:75) and Tzitz Eliezer (8:16) write that in the absence of wine, if one
> has no other choice, one may recite havdalah on coffee or tea...

The AhS refers to "teih matoq", whereas in other places he does talk about
"teih" without the "matoq".

In 89:23 he allows drking tea before Shacharis, and notes that some
prohibited drinking it with sugar, but he didn't understand why. But
this is enough to make me wonder whether tea and sweet tea can be just
assumed to be the same thing. Even the AhS, who doesn't understand the
reason to make a distinction in OC 89, may feel that tea and sweet tea
were different in this context. After all, why here does it say "teih
matoq", if he uses "teih" alone everywhere else?

I raised this possibility here before, that the AhS only considers tea
with sugar chamar medinah. At least in his milieu. Other societies may
relate to both tea and to sugar differently.

Chodesh Tov!
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 A sick person never rejects a healing procedure
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what
Author: Widen Your Tent      other people think when dealing with spiritual
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    matters?              - Rav Yisrael Salanter