Tea and Coffee: Is There A North / South Divide?

So I was at a wedding last weekend down in the Cotswolds. I say down because I am in Manchester.

Lovely wedding, stunning location, a really fantastic couple of days.

But it wasn’t the venue, the occasion, the people, the weather even, that has given me some food for thought on this blog which kind of links into cruising.

No no no!

It was the drinks………. Or two specific thereof….

As the title suggests, the beverages in question are Tea and Coffee.

Two fundamentally basic drinks, and both equally as popular in this country as the other?

I should explain that this wedding featured a groom from Manchester, and a bride from London, and as a result, the clash of the old North vs South when it came to their friends and family. 50/50 really on either side.

And it was at breakfast, lunch, outside on the terraces, and post dinner that I noticed something odd.

Almost every person I overheard ordering Tea at the above mentioned times, was Southern, and almost everyone ordering Coffee, was from the North. Coincidence? Have i imagined it?

There was the odd exception of course but the majority was this way round. It struck me as the perfect chance to open a can of worms and ultimately deliver what I believe nobody has. Northern or Southern: Which would you choose? Tea or Coffee?

My gut instinct would actually be that coffee would be the more popular in the South, and tea, the more widely drank in the North. Perhaps I would think this because of companies such as Yorkshire Tea being mass purchased up here, and the fact that there is a coffee house on every corner of every London street. I don’t know. But I would love to see the stats on this!

It comes on the back of the wedding of course, but also inspired by conversations I have with my own clients about inclusions on ships, and the importance of having Tea & Coffee making facilities in your cabin. A amenity that not all ships will afford you sadly.

Anyway, if you’re wondering what this Northerner drinks, well it’s coffee every time! Strong, black and bitter, preference to Italian coffee which has a heavy, thick, powerful almost tobacco kick (although I’m a none smoker) to it. Tea for me just doesn’t deliver enough punch, it’s too delicate. Although I did enjoy it in China, where they have more choice of flavours than any product I’ve ever seen in a country!

But what are you? Coffee or Tea? More importantly, where are you from?

Thanks for reading and as always, until next time….