Tea/coffee opinions

[backontrack]

Right now I've got a mug of fruit tea - blueberry & apple Twinings. And I'm watching the football, but then I'm veggie so don't do Bovril anyway.

 

[Busaholic]

Assam tea, espresso coffee or a SMALL cappuccino. Never drunk a cup of hot chocolate in my life, though I am partial to a bar of chocolate. Had to make Horlicks for people in a Wimpy Bar summer job fifty years ago, and the smell almost caused me to retch each time.

 

[IanD]

As for the voting option, why not just vote for each?

I did vote for both but don't prefer either. It all depends on the context - eg tea with a bacon butty or fish and chips, coffee with doughnuts.

 

[33056]

Another vote for Yorkshire tea here, drunk strong with little milk and absolutely no sugar though after a couple of cups in the morning I switch to herbal tea, usually green or rooibos, for the rest of the day.

As for coffee, I despise it; both the taste and the smell

 

[cactustwirly]

Lidl Gold/Yorkshire Tea, at home only I never have tea out.

I detest instant coffee, so I have Lidl "Deluxe" ground coffee, made using a cafetiere (quite strong, with a little bit of milk & honey)

Medium Latte when I'm out.

I usually have 2x Coffee and 1x Tea per day (decent coffee is probably y favourite drink)

 

[Butts]

White Coffee , no sugar accompanied by a Benson and Hedges Gold Cigarette -best start to the day

 

[DasLunatic]

I'm a complete philistine. I brew cups of fruit tea purely for the smell.

 

[Zamracene749]

Coffee all the way, preferably fresh ground and from a cafetiere. Tiny splash of milk and a teaspoon of brown sugar. Couldn't survive 12 hour shifts without it

Tea- Utter poison, even the smell of the stuff makes me gag- it's the beverage equivalent of celery to me. Ackkkkk.....

 

[Willr2094]

I'm mostly a coffee person. I drink a mix of instant and filter coffee at home, when out I tend to order either Lattes or Cappuccinos. The coffee has to be without sugar and with milk (I find coffee with sugar in to be undrinkable, though at Christmas I drink the seasonal flavoured coffees the chain coffee shops put out).

I went off tea between 2001 - 2009 (I went on a school trip to an outdoor centre and the cafeteria gave us a flask of tea each to drink with our packed lunches, which was usually foul - really weak, lukewarm and also fairly stale).

Since 2009 I have started drinking tea again occasionally, as one of my close friends can't stand coffee, so when I visit him, I drink tea instead.

 

[Mojo]

I hate coffee and I hate coffee culture.

One of the main things I hate about coffee is the way that it seems to have taken over. There's a great piece in the Australian from a few years ago: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arc...e-swilling-elite/story-e6frg9gx-1225955239673

DO you know who I can't stand?

Coffee drinkers. You may scoff, but tea drinkers such as me are sick of being treated as second-class citizens by the coffee elite. There I am, waiting in line to be served at a Collins Street cafe and the person in front orders coffee. How long does it take to make a cup of coffee?

Coffee-making is a ritual that demands the attention of everyone within earshot. It's not so much the tedious ordering but the preparation. It starts with two thumping bangs on the bench rather like a judge hitting his gavel to signal the start of proceedings. This is followed by swishing and swooshing. And it doesn't end until the barista carves what I am sure is a pagan design on the froth.

All the while everyone in the queue must stand in reverential silence, watching and waiting. This is just the way coffee drinkers like it: they are at the centre of all this commotion. It's all done for them, to satisfy their need, their desire -- no, their shameless lust -- for coffee.

For coffee drinkers, it's all about me. Look at me. I'm a coffee drinker and I'm ordering a coffee that takes a long time and a lot of noise to prepare. Did you know that coffee has mystical powers? If a coffee drinker drinks a "sophisticated coffee", then they think that coffee has the power to make them more sophisticated. It's a bit sad, really. All too often coffee drinkers think they're, you know, a bit lah-de-dah. Well, they're not.

Do you know, coffee drinkers, that the only reason no one has ever told you this before is because we tea people are too polite. That's right. We are so well mannered that we don't want to create a scene. Well, not any more. I'm calling on tea drinkers everywhere to take their rightful place in the beverage hierarchy.

Never heard of the beverage hierarchy? Well, that's probably because you're a coffee drinker. Only tea people know about the beverage hierarchy. At the pinnacle of this drinks pyramid is the red wine drinker. And as you've probably guessed, I also don't drink red wine. I am doubly damned. You want proof of the existence of a beverage hierarchy? There I am on a plane bumped into business, where flight attendants offer wine with the meal. The attendants smile; the red wine drinkers smile; they have a cosy discussion about wine; they titter and they tatter in a red wine-colluding sort of way. I am on the outer; I can only observe from afar this beverage bonding between waiter and waited-upon.

I am offered red wine but reject it. I am offered white wine but reject it. I am offered coffee but reject it. Finally I am offered tea. But by the time I am offered tea the red wine guy has been topped up. Here is the beverage hierarchy writ large. Red wine guy gets seconds before tea person get firsts. Back at the Collins Street cafe and finally it's my turn to order. "Black tea, please." And as soon as that word "tea" falls from my lips I know what the barista is thinking. He's thinking "what is a tea drinker doing sullying the tone of my coffee queue?" Not that he says that, but I know he's thinking exactly that.

And when the barista gets my tea, he puts a tea bag beside a cup of hot water on a plate and says "$4, thanks". Four dollars? Four dollars! But you just charged that coffee drinker $4 for a hand-crafted froth-designed latte that took two minutes to prepare.

Then it dawned on me. My tea-drinking simplicity, taking all of 30 seconds to prepare, is cross-subsidising the coffee elite's designer beverages: part of my $4 pays for the production costs of fancy-pants coffee.

As you can imagine, this injustice rankles with tea drinkers everywhere. But not all tea drinkers share my outrage. Apparently there are some people who drink tea at home but coffee when out. This is very sad. Clearly so oppressed are some tea drinkers that they feel compelled to live a double life. Come out, tea drinkers, and be proud of your beverage orientation.

I have a dream. I dream of a time when tea drinkers get served before red wine drinkers get top-ups. I dream of a time when cafes charge for the time it takes to prepare hot drinks. And I dream of a time when coffee is prepared without thumping and swooshing. Because if coffee was prepared in silence, as for tea, then coffee would cease to have appeal to those who clearly like to be at the centre of attention.

Dave Gorman did a good piece on it as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DWFWyz9f2w

 

[DarloRich]

what is coffee culture? All that barrista rubbish?

 

[Bletchleyite]

what is coffee culture? All that barrista rubbish?

To be fair to the coffee chains, they moved in (in the mid 1990s) into a market that had a massive gap in it - somewhere to go and sit for a bit, or have a chat, that wasn't a pub.

The only thing I find a shame about them is that they don't tend to open in the evenings (though there is one independent locally that does - as you're also a local it's Xpresso Net in Xscape - and as such if I go to meet a non-drinking friend we'll go there instead of 'Spoons).

 

[backontrack]

I'm a complete philistine. I brew cups of fruit tea purely for the smell.

I've just had some peppermint tea.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

what is coffee culture? All that barrista rubbish?

It's what you get if you don't clean your cafétiere before going on holiday for two weeks...

I drink both, but probably more coffee than tea at the moment. Both are taken strong but milky, no sugar unless I'm hypoglycaemic. Coffee can be any brand except Nestlé or home brand but tea MUST be Tetley's Extra Strong. Thats why I only have tea at home.

 

[backontrack]

The battle of the adverts...

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[johntea]

If I'm at work, tea with sugar or Nescafe Gold Blend (Probably the only 'instant' coffee that I can actually bear!)

If I'm out and about, one of the hot drink options from McDonalds I find is far superior and cheaper than the other coffee outlet options!

 

[backontrack]

To further cement my sacrilegious standing, how about Lemon and Ginger tea?

 

[yorksrob]

At last, the thread I've been waiting for !

Tea for me, the stronger the better (I like to squeeze the teabag).

One of the things that I find irritating is where you go to an outlet, usually vastly overpriced for a cup of tea, and they insist on putting the milk in themselves. They invariably put too much in. I blame this decline on the modern fad of coffee drinking as coffee invariably requires more milk than tea and if you're stuck with a coffee drinker making your tea, you can look forward to the milky dishwater experience.

Another irritation of mine is Twining's 'everyday' tea. Everyday dishwater more like. A dreadful 'one cup' abomination. Maccy D's is the best with a big strong cup of PG for one pound nine.

 

[bavvo]

Tea for me, all day long. Loose leaf too, proper teapot, splash of milk. Although if out and about I tend to get coffee since most establishments treat tea as a second class drink and it's always disappointing.

 

[Darandio]

Tea for me, either Punjana (highly recommended) or Yorkshire Tea, like Darlo it has to dye your insides. If I do have a coffee, we have a jar of Douwe Egberts.