Espresso Expression

I like tea. I drink an awful lot of it. But somehow, recently, with neither effort nor intent, I’ve found that I’ve become a coffee convert?! This troubles me somewhat.

It all began whilst on a short break in Europe. The climate was so cold, I initially drank coffee as a mere body-warming and brain-waking tool – frothy cappuccinos and creamy caramel lattes from a cosy sofa-filled café are too delicious to resist when it’s snowing outside and you’ve been on your feet for hours. I would have usually opted for tea, naturally, but on the continent there wasn’t always that choice available, or at least not to the same standard that I’d have in England. So, before I knew it, my tongue grew accustomed to the alternative and I started to crave coffee constantly: a comfort for frozen fingers; a wake-up buzz; a boost for weary bones; a specific desire for the unique taste that I had seemingly acquired without even realising.

I believe that the point of no return occurred when I found myself actively choosing to make up a cup in the hotel room – a freeze-dried three-sachet combination; just-add-boiling-water job - with not a dash of fresh ingredients in sight. Previously, I had only tolerated café-made coffee, frequently consisting of a cup of steamed milk with the smallest shot of espresso to give that distinctive flavour and the accompanying perky feeling. Now, I was drinking the instant stuff straight from the packet, with only powdered whitener and spoonful of sugar to soften the bitterness?! That moment, right there - a classic sign of a drug user so in need of a fix that they’ll take whatever they can get, regardless of quality, just for the high. I can tell you now, if I start wondering when it was that I became truly converted to coffee, I will think back to that moment.

Of course, I’m not quite an addict yet, and the first thing I did upon waking up in my home country was to brew a cup of one of the twenty types of tea that resides in my cupboard – sitting down with a mug of English Breakfast made me realise how much I’d missed having access to tea on tap, a welcome reassurance that I won’t be switching my loyalty anytime soon. I like tea a lot, I have been a strictly tea girl for about half a decade now and I’m not about to give it up in favour of its more highly caffeinated counterpart. However, I can’t deny the fact that recently coffee has come calling and I’m not sure that it’s going to release its grip on me too easily.

I like coffee, I like tea, I like when you chat with me.

Flitterbox: Peter Gabriel ~ Solsbury Hill