Coffee or Tea ?

One of the questions I like to ask in my interview process is ...are you a coffee or tea drinker ? There is no right or wrong answer, but I like throwing a curve ball into the serious questions and yes - we do keep track of the trends over time.  Actually the 3pm Starbucks coffee run is part of our DNA at the FUSE Health office.

Growing up in Texas I was an "iced" tea drinker.  Now that is real brewed tea over ice. And in the Texas heat, no boiling water required you simply put tea bags and water into closed containers like these mason jars and let the sun do its work. Sun tea - just pour over ice.

In restaurants in the South when you order tea it is an iced tea default as opposed to the North where it is hot tea - that took some getting used to when I first moved to Toronto.  You may have heard of "sweet tea", and as it sounds - iced tea with lots of sugar. Always too sweet for me, even now if I order an iced tea here in the "North" I order it half sweet.  Yes I'm that person at Starbucks - Iced venti 1/2 sweet black tea ;-).  I'm off iced tea right now because I don't want to be feeding my kidney stone more oxalates - I'd like to pass it before it grows. (another blog to come on kidney stones).

I didn't drink coffee until I moved to Toronto.  Well, let's face it not many hot drinks were required and I moved long before the iced coffee wave.  I started drinking it for the warmth, ironically I hadn't figured out how to bleed my radiators so I was wearing layers and drinking hot beverages.  I did learn the radiator trick but have been drinking coffee ever since.  My Starbucks order for my hot beverage not too bad - Grande Lactose-Free Latte (iced in the summer).

I fully embrace caffeine - I enjoy the smell of brewing coffee, the social aspect of getting together for a coffee and in the heat - a refreshing iced tea quenches the thirst like nothing else.  Not so fussy on hot tea, but perhaps that's for the next 50 years !

Coffee, tea, hot, cold - enjoy it any way you like it :-)