Beverages

"It's like Republicans vs. Democrats," my husband said.

As I was preparing coffee for my French neighbor, I had commented that as a person raised as an American, I often found myself drinking tea as my Brit friends drank coffee defying the stereotypes. 

Or is it like Pepsi vs. Coke drinkers and nary the twain shall meet?

I thought of my beverage drinking history.

I came from a New England tea drinking family, although my grandmother did have one cup of instant Nescafe each morning. This was long before the time of gourmet teas and coffee.

Sometimes there would be a pot of Lipton tea made to the instructions given by Arthur Godfrey on his TV show.

As a child I was forced to drink milk, gagging it down with as much chocolate Bosco as they would allow me to put in it.

My first husband was a coffee drinker. I loved the smell. The taste...it was okay.

When my daughter was little and I had a roommate we bought International Coffees, thinking ourselves so sophisticated. Once we began to travel to Europe we realized the difference between the corporate product and reality.

My preferred beverage was Coke in place of all other beverages often swallowing one or two liters a day. When I quit I lost 25 pounds within a month...probably a connection, don't you think?

I then have substituted tea: green, black and tisanes (herbal).

My daughter, who never drank either tea or coffee, spent her 17th year of high school in Germany and came back a coffee guzzler. On a recent visit, she introduced me to mocchinos at La Noisette down the street. Yum. Rick and I indulge as we people-watch on marché day.

There is something though...if a coffee drinker wants a cup of coffee nothing else will do. The same can be said for a tea drinker wanting tea. (We won't discuss Coke). 
 
The difference between beverage and political preference is there is no pejorative applied to those that choose another beverage than the one you like. This is a good thing.