Who here loves coffee?

[english si]

I generally drink tea.  Black teas, Earl Grey or Assam or Darjeeling.

English Breakfast? Or is that not quality enough?

Assam drunk properly, with a splash of milk?

I only drink coffee to keep awake if I'm at some roadside convenience store that doesn't have decent tea (water not at a full boil, lousy tea).

I've never understood the lack of kettles in the US. Surely you'll need boiling water easily for purposes that aren't tea?

As for lousy tea - it seems the sweepings need to go somewhere (other than creating caffeine for RedBull, etc), I guess. You can, in the UK, at least, somewhat hide lower-quality tea (of store-own economy brand type, not non-premium tea like PG Tips or Typhoo and even normal store-bought stuff is of a drinkable quality) by brewing it longer. But in the US, people don't know how to make tea properly in the first place, let alone how to hide cheapness.

In the US, due to the lower demand, the quality of tea will be less in the places where price is the key concern, and the price will be higher where quality is the main concern. In the UK, cheap tea isn't of too-bad a quality, as each store-chain can shift a couple of million teabags of their cheap tea a month (or week with bigger chains), and so the bulk discount pushes the quality up, while keeping the 1c/bag cost. Normal store-brand tea is 2c/bag, PG tips is about 4c/bag and more expensive brands 5 or 6c/bag, premium tea is a lot more.

[Pete from Boston]

Diet coke is poison and should be avoided at all cost.

Aspartame is a toxin and can cause adverse reactions.  If you support aspartame, do some research on the approval process for aspartame.  Donald Rumsfeld had a lot to do with it, if that tells you anything.

I miss being able to pick up sugar cane filled Coke "Mexi-cola" and various other "pop" (I'm getting shit about that again now that I'm on east coast once more) that were available along the border that people would bring up from Mexico.  The Feds can try to convince me all day that high fructose corn syrup tastes the same....it doesn't and I can't stand the taste of regular non-diet pop because of it.  It's an interesting history of tariffs on sugar and gradual corporate shut downs that led all this "fructose" crap being used due it being cheap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Coke

It's widely available up here.

[formulanone]

I've never understood the lack of kettles in the US. Surely you'll need boiling water easily for purposes that aren't tea?

But in the US, people don't know how to make tea properly in the first place, let alone how to hide cheapness.

Brace yourself: I'll put a cup of purified water in a microwave oven for 60-75 seconds, put a tea bag in it, and call it a drink 2-5 minutes later. I'll steep it to how I want it, sometimes light or sometimes strong, and drink it without anything added to it.

In the US, due to the lower demand, the quality of tea will be less in the places where price is the key concern, and the price will be higher where quality is the main concern.

The Bigelow brand seems to be my favorite, and it seems to be popular in markets and hotels around America, but I know tea as I know most things...with generally limited experience and exposure. It's something I will have as an evening pick-me-up when it's cold outside or if I have a sore throat.

It's widely available up here.

Its popularity has spread a lot in the past few years. It used to be something I could only find in some of the bodegas and convenience stores in Miami-Dade, but I've noticed it lately in nearly every C-store and even Wal-Marts.

[english si]

Brace yourself: I'll put a cup of purified water in a microwave oven for 60-75 seconds, put a tea bag in it, and call it a drink 2-5 minutes later. I'll steep it to how I want it, sometimes light or sometimes strong, and drink it without anything added to it.

The microwave is poor - a stove would be better, though more awkward. Everything else is reasonable, if not my preference.

Given the difficult of getting a decent bubbling boil in the microwave (I've just tried it), water onto teabag, rather than teabag into water, will help get the air in there helping the infusion and speeding up the process.

[txstateends]

mmmmm......  coffee 

[J N Winkler]

Assam drunk properly, with a splash of milk?

I can't answer for the person you were replying to, but that is how I have drunk Assam in the past.  I have invariably brewed it from bags, however--I've never been one for loose tea.

I've never understood the lack of kettles in the US. Surely you'll need boiling water easily for purposes that aren't tea?

Things have changed somewhat in the US.  Fifteen years ago, electric kettles were so rare that I never actually laid eyes on one until I moved to the UK.  Ten years ago, you could buy small electric kettles at supermarkets, but instead of automatic shutoff (a feature British kettles have had for at least two decades), they had steam whistles to let you know when the water was at a full boil, which made them almost impossible to use without disturbing other people in a household.  The standard advice at that time was to mail-order electric kettles from Canada, where they were somewhat more popular owing to the Anglophilia of English-speaking Canadians and usually had the standard features of British kettles.

Nowadays you can go to a big-box retailer like Bed Bath and Beyond, or even an extra-large supermarket (typically located on greenfield sites near post-1980 suburban subdivisions) whose selection runs to white goods as well as food, and find a selection of electric kettles that are effectively indistinguishable from ones you can buy in the UK:  automatic shutoff, 1.7-L maximum capacity, etc.

I suspect electric kettles have increased in popularity in the US as Americans have become more health-conscious and have come to realize that they are quite convenient for brewing teas or infusions which are now encouraged for health reasons, such as green tea, chamomile tea, mint tea, etc.  But they are still nowhere near as ubiquitous here as they are in the UK.  Tea-drinking is one of the few great commonalities of British life--all classes drink it and own electric kettles to brew it, while in the US "proper" tea (as opposed to sweet tea and suchlike nonsense) hasn't quite broken out of the middle-class, Whole Foods demographic.

Instead, the position of tea here is comparable to the position of coffee in the UK, which now has many coffee sophisticates but no embedded culture of coffee drinking.  Ironically enough, this is reflected in the types of devices that are used in both countries.  Americans like to brag about not having just electric kettles, but fully automated digital kettles with customizable shutoffs which will heat water to a preset temperature and then hold it there, cycling on and off as necessary.  British people talk about cafetières, stovetop espresso makers, filter-funnel-and-jar brewing, and so on, which is apt to confuse the great bulk of American coffee drinkers who have never actually used anything but an electrically operated drip coffeemaker.

As for lousy tea - it seems the sweepings need to go somewhere (other than creating caffeine for RedBull, etc), I guess. You can, in the UK, at least, somewhat hide lower-quality tea (of store-own economy brand type, not non-premium tea like PG Tips or Typhoo and even normal store-bought stuff is of a drinkable quality) by brewing it longer. But in the US, people don't know how to make tea properly in the first place, let alone how to hide cheapness.

A longtime rule of thumb in the UK (which I suspect still holds true) is that tea should never be ordered in restaurants because the tea supplied to the catering trade consists almost entirely of low-quality sweepings.

In the US, due to the lower demand, the quality of tea will be less in the places where price is the key concern, and the price will be higher where quality is the main concern. In the UK, cheap tea isn't of too-bad a quality, as each store-chain can shift a couple of million teabags of their cheap tea a month (or week with bigger chains), and so the bulk discount pushes the quality up, while keeping the 1c/bag cost. Normal store-brand tea is 2c/bag, PG tips is about 4c/bag and more expensive brands 5 or 6c/bag, premium tea is a lot more.

I think this distinction has more to do with food culture and market structure than it does with the effects a broad consumption base has on price.  There is a similar distinction between US and UK supermarkets with regard to coffee.  I have never seen artificially flavored coffee in a British supermarket, let alone the trash Folgers and Maxwell House make for coffee bulk-buyers.  Instead, Sainsburys has basically two lines of preground coffee, typically sold in (approximate) half-pound bags--one line consisting of "cultural" blended coffees that are differentiated largely by depth of roast, fineness of grind, and added ingredients (Italian, French with chicory, Viennese, etc.), and the other consisting of straight-up medium-roasted unblended coffees of defined ethnic origin, rated according to caffeine strength (Kenyan, Costa Rican, Guatemalan, Colombian, Ethiopian Sidamo, Javanese, etc.).

In a medium-sized British city like Oxford, you wouldn't necessarily expect to see this kind of selection in a Tesco, for example, since Sainsburys is slightly more upscale than Tesco.  But in a medium-sized American city like Wichita, which has essentially only one dedicated supermarket chain (Dillons, part of the Kroger octopus) and is only just now getting its first Whole Foods store, you need to go to specialists for this kind of selection, such as the Spice Merchant, a specialist coffee roaster in Old Town, or a small store that caters specifically to British expats (of which Wichita has a few owing to Hawker).

[kkt]

I generally drink tea.  Black teas, Earl Grey or Assam or Darjeeling.

English Breakfast? Or is that not quality enough?

English Breakfast is a style, not tightly defined.  Anyone can make a blend of black teas and call it English Breakfast.  Some are very good.

Assam drunk properly, with a splash of milk?

I'm unconventional and don't put milk in it.  Or sugar.  Drunk without them it's very important not to let it steep too long.  4:30 is perfect.

I only drink coffee to keep awake if I'm at some roadside convenience store that doesn't have decent tea (water not at a full boil, lousy tea).

I've never understood the lack of kettles in the US. Surely you'll need boiling water easily for purposes that aren't tea?

As for lousy tea - it seems the sweepings need to go somewhere (other than creating caffeine for RedBull, etc), I guess. You can, in the UK, at least, somewhat hide lower-quality tea (of store-own economy brand type, not non-premium tea like PG Tips or Typhoo and even normal store-bought stuff is of a drinkable quality) by brewing it longer. But in the US, people don't know how to make tea properly in the first place, let alone how to hide cheapness.

I don't care what happens to the sweepings as long as they don't end up in my tea.
There are some U.S. places that can make tea property, but you're right that it's not nearly as much part of the culture here.  Big cities might have a couple of tea rooms.

In the US, due to the lower demand, the quality of tea will be less in the places where price is the key concern, and the price will be higher where quality is the main concern. In the UK, cheap tea isn't of too-bad a quality, as each store-chain can shift a couple of million teabags of their cheap tea a month (or week with bigger chains), and so the bulk discount pushes the quality up, while keeping the 1c/bag cost. Normal store-brand tea is 2c/bag, PG tips is about 4c/bag and more expensive brands 5 or 6c/bag, premium tea is a lot more.

My feeling is tea of all grades is more expensive here, because it doesn't move as quickly and therefore needs a higher price to cover costs.

[kkt]

Assam drunk properly, with a splash of milk?

I can't answer for the person you were replying to, but that is how I have drunk Assam in the past.  I have invariably brewed it from bags, however--I've never been one for loose tea.

I've never understood the lack of kettles in the US. Surely you'll need boiling water easily for purposes that aren't tea?

Things have changed somewhat in the US.  Fifteen years ago, electric kettles were so rare that I never actually laid eyes on one until I moved to the UK.

Hm, I've kept an electric kettle on my desk at work for much longer than that.  They've been available at five and dime stores.  The electric kettle is for convenience at work, at home I use a tea kettle that sits on a burner of the stove.

Ten years ago, you could buy small electric kettles at supermarkets, but instead of automatic shutoff (a feature British kettles have had for at least two decades), they had steam whistles to let you know when the water was at a full boil, which made them almost impossible to use without disturbing other people in a household.

I've never seen an electric kettle that didn't have an automatic shutoff.  Most stovetop kettles whistle, though some don't or else allow the whistle to be turned off.

The standard advice at that time was to mail-order electric kettles from Canada, where they were somewhat more popular owing to the Anglophilia of English-speaking Canadians and usually had the standard features of British kettles.

Nowadays you can go to a big-box retailer like Bed Bath and Beyond, or even an extra-large supermarket (typically located on greenfield sites near post-1980 suburban subdivisions) whose selection runs to white goods as well as food, and find a selection of electric kettles that are effectively indistinguishable from ones you can buy in the UK:  automatic shutoff, 1.7-L maximum capacity, etc.

I suspect electric kettles have increased in popularity in the US as Americans have become more health-conscious and have come to realize that they are quite convenient for brewing teas or infusions which are now encouraged for health reasons, such as green tea, chamomile tea, mint tea, etc.  But they are still nowhere near as ubiquitous here as they are in the UK.  Tea-drinking is one of the few great commonalities of British life--all classes drink it and own electric kettles to brew it, while in the US "proper" tea (as opposed to sweet tea and suchlike nonsense) hasn't quite broken out of the middle-class, Whole Foods demographic.

I think the electric kettles here are used mostly for things completely unrelated to tea:  instant coffee, cup o' noodles, other instant snack or lunch sorts of foods.

Instead, the position of tea here is comparable to the position of coffee in the UK, which now has many coffee sophisticates but no embedded culture of coffee drinking.  Ironically enough, this is reflected in the types of devices that are used in both countries.  Americans like to brag about not having just electric kettles, but fully automated digital kettles with customizable shutoffs which will heat water to a preset temperature and then hold it there, cycling on and off as necessary.  British people talk about cafetières, stovetop espresso makers, filter-funnel-and-jar brewing, and so on, which is apt to confuse the great bulk of American coffee drinkers who have never actually used anything but an electrically operated drip coffeemaker.

I can't believe some of the electric espresso makers I see here.  Imported from Italy or somewhere, only takes its own brand of coffee, takes up two feet of counterspace, costs a small fortune and even more for the special coffee.  Oh well, to each their own.

As for lousy tea - it seems the sweepings need to go somewhere (other than creating caffeine for RedBull, etc), I guess. You can, in the UK, at least, somewhat hide lower-quality tea (of store-own economy brand type, not non-premium tea like PG Tips or Typhoo and even normal store-bought stuff is of a drinkable quality) by brewing it longer. But in the US, people don't know how to make tea properly in the first place, let alone how to hide cheapness.

A longtime rule of thumb in the UK (which I suspect still holds true) is that tea should never be ordered in restaurants because the tea supplied to the catering trade consists almost entirely of low-quality sweepings.

In the US, due to the lower demand, the quality of tea will be less in the places where price is the key concern, and the price will be higher where quality is the main concern. In the UK, cheap tea isn't of too-bad a quality, as each store-chain can shift a couple of million teabags of their cheap tea a month (or week with bigger chains), and so the bulk discount pushes the quality up, while keeping the 1c/bag cost. Normal store-brand tea is 2c/bag, PG tips is about 4c/bag and more expensive brands 5 or 6c/bag, premium tea is a lot more.

I think this distinction has more to do with food culture and market structure than it does with the effects a broad consumption base has on price.  There is a similar distinction between US and UK supermarkets with regard to coffee.  I have never seen artificially flavored coffee in a British supermarket, let alone the trash Folgers and Maxwell House make for coffee bulk-buyers.  Instead, Sainsburys has basically two lines of preground coffee, typically sold in (approximate) half-pound bags--one line consisting of "cultural" blended coffees that are differentiated largely by depth of roast, fineness of grind, and added ingredients (Italian, French with chicory, Viennese, etc.), and the other consisting of straight-up medium-roasted unblended coffees of defined ethnic origin, rated according to caffeine strength (Kenyan, Costa Rican, Guatemalan, Colombian, Ethiopian Sidamo, Javanese, etc.).

In a medium-sized British city like Oxford, you wouldn't necessarily expect to see this kind of selection in a Tesco, for example, since Sainsburys is slightly more upscale than Tesco.  But in a medium-sized American city like Wichita, which has essentially only one dedicated supermarket chain (Dillons, part of the Kroger octopus) and is only just now getting its first Whole Foods store, you need to go to specialists for this kind of selection, such as the Spice Merchant, a specialist coffee roaster in Old Town, or a small store that caters specifically to British expats (of which Wichita has a few owing to Hawker).

In my local supermarket, Safeway, loose tea has entirely disappeared.  I get Twinings teabags for work, but now make trips to specialty shops for loose tea to have at home.

[J N Winkler]

Hm, I've kept an electric kettle on my desk at work for much longer than that.  They've been available at five and dime stores.  The electric kettle is for convenience at work, at home I use a tea kettle that sits on a burner of the stove.

This might be a regional difference.  In Wichita I can say for sure that I never saw an electric kettle that far back.  Before we got a kettle with steam whistle (no automatic shutoff) about a decade ago, we had thermocouple-controlled water heaters, which heat water without actually boiling it and seem to be designed mostly for instant coffee.

I've never seen an electric kettle that didn't have an automatic shutoff.  Most stovetop kettles whistle, though some don't or else allow the whistle to be turned off.

I think our electric kettle sans automatic shutoff went out in the last Amvets donation.  We hated it.

I can remember seeing just one kettle without automatic shutoff when I lived in Britain.  It was clearly old and secondhand, and lived in a darkroom where it was meant to make it easy to mix photographic chemicals at a precise 20° C.

I think the electric kettles here are used mostly for things completely unrelated to tea:  instant coffee, cup o' noodles, other instant snack or lunch sorts of foods.

I think this is also true in our household, but only because we don't drink black tea or infusions that often.  We use the kettle at least once a week to boil water for pasta.  For the other applications you describe, we generally used the microwave to heat water before we had kettles.

I can't believe some of the electric espresso makers I see here.  Imported from Italy or somewhere, only takes its own brand of coffee, takes up two feet of counterspace, costs a small fortune and even more for the special coffee.  Oh well, to each their own.

I have never wanted a Keurig coffeemaker ever since I saw a clip from a Swiss consumer-advocacy TV show (I was then visiting distant cousins who live near Zürich) which played up the outrageous cost of the coffee packets.  On the other hand, it is possible to buy espresso makers with a similar form factor that take coffee beans in bulk (no need to buy a special brand or packaging), grind them, and brew espresso with them, all within two or three minutes.  They can be temperamental in a communal setting where you can't be sure the spent grounds will be cleaned out promptly, but the coffee they produce comes closer to true espresso than anything I have been able to make in a moka pot.

[hbelkins]

LOL @ "pop".  Pop is a type of music or a small explosion to me.  I've lived in Oklahoma and laugh every time I hear somebody say "pop".  "Pop" sounds cheap and low quality, like the Walmart brand of cola.  Quality soft drinks shouldn't be called "pop".

Everytime I use the term "pop" for soft drink, which is the commonly used vernacular in this part of the world, Jeremy has a hard time comprehending the fact that what is "pop" to Kentuckians is "soda" to northeasterners and who-knows-what to other regions. I've seen maps showing which term is most popularly (no pun intended) used in different parts of the country, and the question on what you call carbonated soft drinks appears on one of those dialect quizzes that makes the rounds on social media from time to time.

Around here, people will sometimes use the term "coke" to mean any soft drink (as in, you ask, "Do you want a coke?" "Yeah." Friend/spouse grabs a Pepsi or Ale-8 out of the fridge and brings it to you) but in general, the word used for a soft drink is "pop." As for a "soda" and you may get that "you ain't from around here, are you?" look.

[The Nature Boy]

LOL @ "pop".  Pop is a type of music or a small explosion to me.  I've lived in Oklahoma and laugh every time I hear somebody say "pop".  "Pop" sounds cheap and low quality, like the Walmart brand of cola.  Quality soft drinks shouldn't be called "pop".

Everytime I use the term "pop" for soft drink, which is the commonly used vernacular in this part of the world, Jeremy has a hard time comprehending the fact that what is "pop" to Kentuckians is "soda" to northeasterners and who-knows-what to other regions. I've seen maps showing which term is most popularly (no pun intended) used in different parts of the country, and the question on what you call carbonated soft drinks appears on one of those dialect quizzes that makes the rounds on social media from time to time.

Around here, people will sometimes use the term "coke" to mean any soft drink (as in, you ask, "Do you want a coke?" "Yeah." Friend/spouse grabs a Pepsi or Ale-8 out of the fridge and brings it to you) but in general, the word used for a soft drink is "pop." As for a "soda" and you may get that "you ain't from around here, are you?" look.

For reference:



Pop seems to be dominant geographically.

Some of the places where soda pops up though is confusing. Why is the part of Wisconsin along Lake Michigan biased towards "soda" and how did eastern Missouri/Western and Southern IL miss out on the pop memo?

[formulanone]

What's the (green) "other"? In The Carolinas is it, "do you want a Pepsi?"

I'm going to guess that the St. Louis area included a some Northeastern transplants along with the bottling plants, and the word spread that way.

I'm struggling to figure out what Osceola County, Florida calls it, but maybe they interviewed a lot of tourists at Denny's and Walt Disney World.

I wonder what the dominant terms are in Hardee and Okeechobee counties in Florida, or Fayette County, Alabama...why the green?

[Pete from Boston]

The lower percentages in Eastern New England reflects, of course, the use of "tonic," which the pressures of mass marketing and inward migration are steadily banishing to the linguistic dustbin.  Makes me a little sad 

[The Nature Boy]

What's the (green) "other"? "Do you want a Pepsi?"

I'm going to guess that the St. Louis area included a some Northeastern transplants along with the bottling plants, and the word spread that way.

I'm struggling to figure out what Osceola County, Florida calls it, but maybe they interviewed a lot of tourists at Denny's and Walt Disney World.

In North Carolina, some people just say "drink." From personal experience, that's what the green in NC represents.

[hbelkins]

In North Carolina, some people just say "drink." From personal experience, that's what the green in NC represents.

You sure it's not "Cheerwine?" 

[The Nature Boy]

In North Carolina, some people just say "drink." From personal experience, that's what the green in NC represents.

You sure it's not "Cheerwine?" 

You wouldn't believe how happy I was when I was in Boston and found a place in Harvard Square that sold Cheerwine.

[Alps]

LOL @ "pop".  Pop is a type of music or a small explosion to me.  I've lived in Oklahoma and laugh every time I hear somebody say "pop".  "Pop" sounds cheap and low quality, like the Walmart brand of cola.  Quality soft drinks shouldn't be called "pop".

Everytime I use the term "pop" for soft drink, which is the commonly used vernacular in this part of the world, Jeremy has a hard time comprehending the fact that what is "pop" to Kentuckians is "soda" to northeasterners and who-knows-what to other regions. I've seen maps showing which term is most popularly (no pun intended) used in different parts of the country, and the question on what you call carbonated soft drinks appears on one of those dialect quizzes that makes the rounds on social media from time to time.

Around here, people will sometimes use the term "coke" to mean any soft drink (as in, you ask, "Do you want a coke?" "Yeah." Friend/spouse grabs a Pepsi or Ale-8 out of the fridge and brings it to you) but in general, the word used for a soft drink is "pop." As for a "soda" and you may get that "you ain't from around here, are you?" look.

For reference:



Pop seems to be dominant geographically.

Some of the places where soda pops up though is confusing. Why is the part of Wisconsin along Lake Michigan biased towards "soda" and how did eastern Missouri/Western and Southern IL miss out on the pop memo?

That's like saying Republicans are dominant geographically, so why isn't the whole country Republican. By population, FAR more people say "soda" than "pop." "Pop" is what corn does.

[The Nature Boy]

LOL @ "pop".  Pop is a type of music or a small explosion to me.  I've lived in Oklahoma and laugh every time I hear somebody say "pop".  "Pop" sounds cheap and low quality, like the Walmart brand of cola.  Quality soft drinks shouldn't be called "pop".

Everytime I use the term "pop" for soft drink, which is the commonly used vernacular in this part of the world, Jeremy has a hard time comprehending the fact that what is "pop" to Kentuckians is "soda" to northeasterners and who-knows-what to other regions. I've seen maps showing which term is most popularly (no pun intended) used in different parts of the country, and the question on what you call carbonated soft drinks appears on one of those dialect quizzes that makes the rounds on social media from time to time.

Around here, people will sometimes use the term "coke" to mean any soft drink (as in, you ask, "Do you want a coke?" "Yeah." Friend/spouse grabs a Pepsi or Ale-8 out of the fridge and brings it to you) but in general, the word used for a soft drink is "pop." As for a "soda" and you may get that "you ain't from around here, are you?" look.

For reference:



Pop seems to be dominant geographically.

Some of the places where soda pops up though is confusing. Why is the part of Wisconsin along Lake Michigan biased towards "soda" and how did eastern Missouri/Western and Southern IL miss out on the pop memo?

That's like saying Republicans are dominant geographically, so why isn't the whole country Republican. By population, FAR more people say "soda" than "pop." "Pop" is what corn does.

There's a reason I added the qualifier "geographically." I've lived most of my life in the eastern part of the country so pop sounds foreign to me too.

In terms of geographically, there are more places (but fewer people) that say pop.

[JMoses24]

Until recently, coffee was a big vice of mine. (Caffeine in general, for that matter.)

But on August 8, I decided I had to stop drinking most caffeine to determine if my intake was causing me to develop involuntary muscle spasms. (It wasn't helping, but the primary reason is my spinal stenosis.) I have since limited myself to the occasional can of tea; coffee is now out and so are caffeinated soft drinks. I switched to caffeine free Mountain Dew when I drink pop, and actually like it. Unfortunately, I have not yet found that in 20 ounce bottles in my area yet, so if I'm out of the house, I'll buy a caffeine free Diet Coke (not the best thing for me). I'm almost a month into the change and doing okay. I've figured out what I can drink at many restaurants now, too...I'll usually go lemonade, as sprite and 7up just don't do it for me.

So, to answer the poll question, I don't drink it at all now.

[DandyDan]

I only drink the stuff at the drive thru coffee shop, but still, it's coffee, ain't it?

[mcdonaat]

LOL @ "pop".  Pop is a type of music or a small explosion to me.  I've lived in Oklahoma and laugh every time I hear somebody say "pop".  "Pop" sounds cheap and low quality, like the Walmart brand of cola.  Quality soft drinks shouldn't be called "pop".

Everytime I use the term "pop" for soft drink, which is the commonly used vernacular in this part of the world, Jeremy has a hard time comprehending the fact that what is "pop" to Kentuckians is "soda" to northeasterners and who-knows-what to other regions. I've seen maps showing which term is most popularly (no pun intended) used in different parts of the country, and the question on what you call carbonated soft drinks appears on one of those dialect quizzes that makes the rounds on social media from time to time.

Around here, people will sometimes use the term "coke" to mean any soft drink (as in, you ask, "Do you want a coke?" "Yeah." Friend/spouse grabs a Pepsi or Ale-8 out of the fridge and brings it to you) but in general, the word used for a soft drink is "pop." As for a "soda" and you may get that "you ain't from around here, are you?" look.

For reference:



Pop seems to be dominant geographically.

Some of the places where soda pops up though is confusing. Why is the part of Wisconsin along Lake Michigan biased towards "soda" and how did eastern Missouri/Western and Southern IL miss out on the pop memo?

What I'm wondering is... why on earth are Jackson, Catahoula, and Union parishes using pop, when the parishes around them use Coke as the name? I always ask for Dr Pepper by name anyways.

[Brandon]

That's like saying Republicans are dominant geographically, so why isn't the whole country Republican. By population, FAR more people say "soda" than "pop." "Pop" is what corn does.

They do? 

Maybe in your part of the country, but here, and where I come from, "pop" is ubiquitous, and "soda" is almost unheard of.

Soda, BTW, is a caustic substance you can find in the baking or cleaning aisles.  Look for Arm & Hammer for one of the brands.

[Laura]

I do my best to completely avoid caffeine unless it is absolutely necessary for me to stay awake.

I stopped drinking caffeinated drinks on a daily basis by happenstance: in April 2013 I got sick with a norovirus for a week and couldn't keep anything down. Once I got better, I noticed that I no longer craved coffee or soda, so I didn't drink any for a few weeks to see what would happen. Overall, I had more energy and slept better because I wasn't putting my body through rises and crashes.

That said, sometimes I need it to stay awake, and on those occasions, I will grab a cup of decaf coffee, which has enough caffeine to keep me wired. Right now is my favorite coffee time of year because pumpkin everything. If I go to Starbucks, I get a decaf skinny pumpkin spice latte. If I do to Dunkin Donuts, I get a decaf coffee with cream, sugar, pumpkin.

On special occasions (typically at a party with or without alcohol) I'll have soda. My absolute favorite soda in the world is Cheerwine. Back when I was a crazy soda drinker, I'd bring cases of it home every time I went down to VA.

If I really want an energy boost, I'll drink an energy drink, my favorites being the cherry AMP (tastes like Cheerwine on crack) or the irish creme monster.

Otherwise, in my daily life, I drink water and milk.

ETA: I do like tea, especially in the winter when it's cold, when I drink caffeine-free herbal teas (red raspberry is my favorite).

[bandit957]

Coffee makes me poo.

[Brandon]

Coffee makes me poo.

And here I thought it was just a diuretic.