I am essentially not a coffee and tea person and not only am I unrepentant about it, I’m also not apologetic. And the madness with people who are addicted to teas and coffees starts in times like these–times of blazing sun and searing heat. These coffee and tea people will always be heard trying to convince you that the best remedy for such hot weather is a steaming hot mug of chai or kawa. Something is then explained to you about how when you drink hot chai, you release sweat, the sweating here acting as the cooling mechanism. But who in their right state of mind would want to sweat it out in a situation that’s already too hot? As far as I’m concerned, this is not the kind of weather in which to go looking for places where they sell “African Tea” and “Black Tea” and all those other confusing words hoteliers always torment us with. We know that “African tea” is that tea with milk in it, so why not simply call it “Milk tea?” When I go out to have a drink, especially a drink to quell the flaming heat, I want this drink to be stated boldly and unambiguously. And by bold and un ambiguous, we mean to say Amata na Fanta bikonje. The other beef I have with coffee is that most people don’t know what constitutes good coffee. No clue whatsoever. Far as I know, it’s not coffee if it’s served lukewarm like a baby’s bath water. No! On the contrary, good coffee is this; and take it from me: Good coffee must be hot like the fangs of hell, and pitch-black, like the devil himself. In other words, after a mug of coffee, a son of man must now emerge drenched in his own sweat. If anything, there are many ways of getting caffeine into my system without necessarily having to brew and imbibe large quantities of coffee. One of those is Redbull, the energy drink. I suspect that Turbo King also has some caffeine in it, going by how similar it is in texture and appearance to coffee. Of course not forgetting Coca Cola which, from childhood we were always told had something in it that also occurred in coffee. The problem is that at the time, we used to call it cocaine instead of caffeine. So we grew up knowing the word Coca Cola to be synonymous with cocaine, or at the very least, something suspicious –something conspicuously absent from other drinks.
