h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wake each morning with a yearning for my cup of coffee....This is normally instant as I can't be bothered with the fuss of grinding beans and wating for it to brew nicely...(which in my family as "Accurate Coffee"
Then on the way to work another enormous coffee from a coffee house, large, skinny, extra shot Cappacino...no sugar.
By this time I am so high I do everything with more speed, less precision.
At lunch I feel guilty and opt for a fruit smoothie and some water....
Come 5 I NEED another and drink 3 from the horrible machine that spits out a luke warm dishwater like substance...
I only drink tea when I'm a) at my mothers' or b) at my mother-in-laws'. Although I am far more fussy about my tea.
My tea of choice is Twinnings Everyday/English Breakfast, if this is not available then the tea must be made PROPERLY. Instructions for "Serious Tea" are as follows:
Tea bags MUST be fresh, or the tea WILL be awful.
It MUST be made in a pot, again the tea will be awful any other way.
*Warm the pot just as the kettle boils, this will stop the water cooling too fast when poured into said pot.
*One tea bag per person and one for the pot.
* Add just boiled water (For ultimate tea, boil water that has first been filtered through a Brita etc)
*Allow to brew for 5 min. NO more, No less.
*Add milk to cup first, this is essential to good tea. Semi-skimmed or skimmed only- "full fat" ruins the delicate taste of the tea.
*Sweeten as you like and stir clockwise then anti clockwise to avoid sugar at the bottom of your cup.
Use a china cup of you wish but they are so tiny it's silly in my opinion....china mugs are good but my mother would kill you if you broke one.
Come to think of it, I could murder a properly made cup of tea....

I like tea, just so long as it is brewed fresh by means of pouring boiling water onto the tea (in a sachet if not in a bag) if it served hot, or it is filtered to remove resinous material and cloudy esters if served cold... and just so long has it has not been denatured by means of adding any other flavoring prior to serving...

...if I want a teaspoon full of 'KoolAid' in my cup of tea, I'll add it myself. (I personally think that a childish vulgarism that would rate a mild scolding if a five year old had done it.)

I think that adding black tea to green tea to give it a black tea color is vulgar and objectionable. Perhaps to people who've never drunk green tea before, it doesn't 'look like' tea if isn't brown. To me it doesn't look or taste like green tea if it is.

When I was a kid I used to be able to get 1 pound bricks of Tibetan style tea, the very coarsest kind of tea, including more stem than leaf, compressed into a brick glued together with crystalized milk whey solids, distinguished from all other kinds of tea on the point that it not only can be boiled but has to be if is to be prepared properly. Not bad at all served with a pat of butter on top.

(Other kinds of tea should merely be steeped in boiling water in a clean and pre-scalded container.)

On coffee, I like Jamaican Blue Mountain well enough enough to pay for it if appears on the menu, but otherwise I'm not picky, just so long as no other flavorings are added prior to serving the coffee as a beverage.

As a flavoring for desserts, coffee does have other uses.

If one were to take away the western worlds' caffeine, what would the consequence be? The economy would collapse.

I totally forgot about "Roobois" or "Red bush" tea!
Having grown up in South Africa this is unforgivable. It has a beautiful aroma and is naturally caffein(sp?) free.
I remember my mother giving it to me as a child with a little milk in it. Now I drink it black and unsweetened or, if I'm unwell, a spoon of honey....Mmm I really need to drink more tea!

South Florida is known for its love affair with Cafe Cubano. This is finely ground and prepared like espresso, has the caffeine of a freight train, and is generally served as a con leche (with milk and two sugars). One will get anybody going, and two will make you bounce off the walls.

Should you need a little mid-morning pickup, you may have a bucci (boo-chee) which is a straight shot, or a doble, which is two straight shots. Both are served in tiny cups and knocked back hot like a liquor shot.

Now you no longer need to wonder how Miami can work all day and party all night.

I'm not a coffee snob, more of a coffee snub, as I won't buy coffee from Starbuck's or Cafe Nero- or any of those high street chains. If we are out and about I'd rather patronise a small cafe or tea shop.

I'm quite happy with instant, preferably something with a bit of body to it (no Mellow Birds for me!!) and usually have an opened packet of 'proper' coffee somewhere in the freezer. The cafetiere usually comes out at christmas time and stays out til the Dundee and fancy biscuits have all gone!! Tea- like my coffee I take it black with no sugar, and usually in the form of a bag. Both are served in mugs.

I try to limit myself to 3-5 cups a day, and none after about 2pm as I have enough trouble sleeping as it is!

>>>I'm not a coffee snob, more of a coffee snub

I know. Does that make me sound a bit precious???

Not at all; we thought it was rather witty

Tea: green usually nowadays 'cos Ms Stress prefers it though I enjoy the normal stuff when Dorty visits.
Made in a pot, properly. Teabags, though, as we've sort of by default drifted away from real leaf tea - can't explain why, don't really know.
The green tea is in a light brown humorous caddy while the brown tea is in a blueish caddy.

Coffee: A few blends from the local supermarkets, decided upon by extensive consumer research.
Not impressed with drip machines. Home espresso machines are a lot of bother & take up too much countertop space, anyway there are plenty of places that do proper coffee in town - anybody's town as well as in-between villages, hamlets & one-horse barns... so it's a cafetiere.
Kept in a clip-top plastic box. Two measures, not level, not rounded, not heaped but peaked.
Rarely (very rarely) instant coffee except when calling in on a neighbour's (who also have their G&T using big 1 1/2litre bottles of T that could be nearly empty by then ).

Ms Stress likes her coffee tempered with a little milk but for me it's distinctly tea no-no, coffee no-no.