Hallowed Grounds

People say the English are obsessed with tea and this is true to a certain extent but pales in comparison to Americans love affair with COFFEE. Imagine if tea was so popular in the UK that almost everyone you saw on the street was carrying a supersized thermos flask to sip from when necessary, if there were drive thru tea shops on every corner where people went any hour of the day or night to spend literally hundreds of pounds a month on luke warm polystyrene cups of tea. Ridiculous? No - reality here in the US but with coffee! It was one of the first things we all noticed when we arrived. Everyone wanders round with portable cups of coffee. Check out any US TV programme and you will start spotting it. They even take their coffee into the Autopsy rooms in the police shows. At first I thought it was crazy and found it very hard to relate to. However my 'acclimatization'

continues apace and I have searched high and low to find a way to blend in! Haha 'blend' geddit? Firstly there was the single cup coffee peculator. The drawback with this is the coffee never gets really blisteringly hot. So now my prayers have been answered in the form of coffee BAGS and a large silver travel mug! This is a winning combination of filter coffee taste but tongue burning heat. Do they sell these bags in the UK? If not I may have to bring a suitcase full back in June! God help me I have even started bringing DECAF in the evening.

The biggest problem is however that there are NO KETTLES at work. So if you want (need) a hot drink you have to bring it in the morning or pop out to Dunkin Donuts when the urge strikes. A staffroom without hot tea on tap - the horror.