What's your tipple of choice?

My wife started drinking hot water instead of coffee or tea to reduce her caffeine intake and avoid staining her teeth.  I tried it and it’s not bad - I’m a convert.  We still need the coffee in the morning to start the day but drink hot water the rest of the day.

Ralph,

I started to drink hot water, sugar and milk (basically tea without a tea-bag, maybe a virgin tea?) at work at work when I had to stop having caffeine as they had no decaffeinated hot drinks. It was also considerably cheaper - it used to be free but then they started charging me for the hot water 20p. I still sometimes have this at home now just for a change. Quite nice.

Dubbie

20p for a cup of water?!!!!! Wow, at our place it's 20p for a tea or coffee!

A week long course will set you back a whole £2 for as much tea and coffee as you can drink in 4.5 days!!!

I only used to pay £5 per month but pulled out when I went vegan. I brew my own coffee at work (and always have that black), and don't like tea black, or with any alternative 'milk' I've tried.

20p a cup for just water! We'd have a mutiny on our hands!

At our company the coffee, tea and hot chocolate are free - from a couple of fancy machines. There are about a dozen choices of different coffee blends. I only partake about 3 times per year.

With all the water pollution scandals of so many of the UK water companies, to be honest they could pay me to consider drinking their water : )

I don't trust it any more, even boiled, so I boil from bottled water!  : (

I like tea - black and green. I only recently discovered that it is possible to buy paper bags and a metal clip to keep them closed after filling. Very convenient.

By the way, I am not sure whether all water companies do this, but in Czech Republic, they let the water supplied to the pipes flow through a water tank with trouts. They are very sensible to water cleanliness, so as long as they are alive and agile in the water, it is drinkable.

However, nothing is perfect... There was a hygienic problem with pipes near the consumers once (many kilometers behind this water purity check).

I DO run all mine thru the Zero Water filter, plus my espresso machine has a filter cartridge installed. The coffee tastes 'funky' if I don't, we have really hard water here. (I mean, it sometimes tastes like a swimming pool - just without all the pee)!!

That's interesting!

I don't know what they do here, but they have been found to regularly lie about pollution and nothing much happens - a small fine here or there.

It's not headline news, and the politicians don't want to mention it. EU standards forced water quality here to improve, but if the water companies lie, then it cannot be trusted. It's still pretty bad (in my non-expert opinion). I feel better not drinking it.

If it was free, and more importantly good, I'd be running up the walls!!

Your company must subsidise your drinks (A University would never do that!). Plus the University said the tax man considered a perk in kind or payment in kind or something and would therefore attract tax. It was probably just an excuse to save money. At the end of my time there we were not even allowed to have coffee and tea at meetings, or biscuits. Nor were we allowed to bring in our own to meetings as the canteen complained as they had an exclusive contract. We were not even supposed to have electric kettles in our offices - for health and safety reasons. Or electric heaters. My office was at the top of the building so by the time the central heating reached me it was nearly cold. I complained so they came and measured my office temperature and said it was warm enough. So I just ignored them and plugged in an electric heater.

Dubbie

To be fair, it's not the company who provide the drinks!

I instruct in a training school, training military and civilian avionic technicians how to fix the aircraft.

The 'tea bar' is run by us, and far from being subsidised, it just isn't supposed to make a 'real' profit - and it barely does, just a small one (else we'd be paying from our own pockets for a load of students each year).

So not subsidised, but run at pretty much cost . . . . .

And we don't have a caterer ruining things for us either - not actually in the building at least - on camp however there is a coffee house or two (one is a Costa concession), cafe and small shop . . . . . . . . . . . .  

To be fair, it's not the company who provide the drinks!

I instruct in a training school, training military and civilian avionic technicians how to fix the aircraft.

The 'tea bar' is run by us, and far from being subsidised, it just isn't supposed to make a 'real' profit - and it barely does, just a small one (else we'd be paying from our own pockets for a load of students each year).

So not subsidised, but run at pretty much cost . . . . .

And we don't have a caterer ruining things for us either - not actually in the building at least - on camp however there is a coffee house or two (one is a Costa concession), cafe and small shop . . . . . . . . . . . .