IN the bad old days of not so long ago, we assumed that there were two types of wine, red and white, two types of ale, the black stuff and the not so black stuff, and one type of whiskey. When it came, to the not so hard stuff, we remained true to our unimaginative and schismatic form by believing that, once again, there were two types of beverage. One was tea. The other was coffee.
Of all the factors which are remarkable about the Irish, surely none is so startling than the fact that we consume more tea than anyone else, and yet the types of tea we drink are drastically limited. In fact, we don't drink tea, we drink brands.
In Dublin, we choose from among the different grades of tea prepared by Lyons, with maybe a bag of Bewley's now and then. Barry's has Cork covered from east to west and north to south. In the North, Punjabi and Nambarrie are the big boys. When Lipton's launched its grand advertising campaign a few years back, people scoffed at the idea that this blow in, this upstart, this new kid in town, could lure disciples from their favourite brands.
Coffee has had an even more uninteresting tenure. Most of the stuff people drink isn't even coffee it is instant coffee (am I alone in thinking that the manufacturers of this stuff should not be allowed to call their concoction "coffee" in advertisements?). With only Bewley's to defend the art of the great drink for so long, it was a brave traveller who ordered a cup of coffee when away from the capital
If you did, something like this would happen. Location: a shop somewhere in Co Donegal. A visitor (me, in fact) enters and asks if they sell coffee. Assistant points to a shelf stocked with instant coffees. Visitor: "Do you have any real coffee?" Assistant: "Oh yes, we do, over there." Assistant points happily to another part of the shelf, stocked with jars of Gold Blend.
A change was always going to come, but the speed of change in the way we regard tea and coffee has been startling. Never mind ice brewed lager, alcoholic lemonade or whatever wine grape is currently taking California by storm. Tea and coffee are the cool drinks for 1996, and knowing your way even a little bit around the maze of choice is essential.
Of course there have always been fine varieties of tea and coffee for sale, but they were sought and bought by only a small number of people. While, for the most part, we stayed loyal to brands, visitors to Paris could see, if they visited great shops like Mariage Freres, how the entire paraphernalia of tea and coffee was not only alluring, but addictive.
Mariage sells more than 400 varieties of tea in its two gorgeous shops, and a visit to some of the coffee shops of London showed that the spectrum of coffees, their alluring provenance, mercurial varieties and mind boggling variations, is remarkable, indeed startling. It was, in retrospect, only a matter of time before we began to explore their glories.
So, if you want to discover these glories, where do you start? Well, in the public sphere, the newly opened Gloria Jean's Gourmet Coffee Co, in Dublin's Powerscourt Centre, brings the agony of choice to a new height.
There are 32 varieties on offer here, and this is only half, the range offered by the American parent of the company. A shop sells all the varieties available, and also the paraphernalia of coffee drinking - the pots, the porcelain, the packets.
There is also a cafe section where you can try to decide if you would prefer a Mudslide to an Amaretto, or maybe a pricey Jamaican Blue Mountain, with all the coffees made on a large Gaggia espresso machine. All of the beans used in Gloria Jean's are arabicas, says Adrian Keaveney, who is hoping to take the idea further afield if all goes well in Powerscourt.
Away from Dublin, the interest in exciting coffee has slowly spawned a variety of good coffee houses. Belfast's Equinox has long been home to perhaps the finest cup in the North, made all the better by being served in a little Rosenthal cup, while the new Roscoff Cafe makes expert cappuccino using Lavazza coffee.
In Galway, Emer Murray of Goya's makes not only glorious buns but also glorious coffee. In Cork, one of the best cups of coffee is to be drunk standing at the counter of Iago, Sean Calder Pott's stall in the Covered Market.
And what about at homed "An espresso machine makes the ultimate cup of coffee," according to Richard Martin of Food Solutions, importers of the splendid Illy coffees. It makes the best coffee because a true espresso machine can generate up to nine atmospheres of pressure, necessary to extract the colloids and aromatic oils that make the coffee so seductive. ("What fragrance is to a rose, aroma is to a cup of coffee," writes Claudia Roden in her book Coffee). So, if you are buying an espresso machine, make sure it can generate this pressure.
It will cost more money, of course. Richard Martin sells the domestic Illy espresso machines for £150, which sounds expensive compared to the considerably lower sums asked by the standard manufacturers. Is it worth paying the difference? The answer is an unequivocal "Yes".
A true espresso produces a narcotic charge in the body with which few other substances can compete. To be able to make this sociable drug at home, to be able to brew a perfect cappuccino for mid morning or a thumping hit of an espresso to wake you up after lunch, is a considerable luxury.
If you don't have an espresso machine, then Richard Martin advises these steps with a cafetiere: "The water should not be more than 90 degrees, otherwise the coffee scorches, and it is best not to let the kettle boil as this preserves oxygen in the water. Estimate seven grams of coffee per cup, pour on the water and allow to stand for five minutes before plunging,"
WHERE coffee has become chic, tea is quickly following. But where do you start when it comes to buying? For the language of tea is dizzyingly complex - how about a cup of Special Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe anyone? - and it can seem all too frightening to wander into a world of such complexity.
One trick is to identify a specialist firm which prepares a wide selection of teas, and begin to explore them day by day. I have been drinking and thoroughly enjoying for the last few months a blend known as "Christmas Tea", made by Benjamin and Barton of Paris, and sold by Terroirs of Donnybrook. Its breakfast teas, and the soothingly named "Afternoon Dream Tea", are gorgeous.
But perhaps the best advice is to trust the sage counsel you will find in places such as Clive McCabe's new shop, in Greystones, Co Wicklow. Of the teas I have tried from the shop, the quality is unerringly high, and something like Mr McCabe's standard Kenya tea is a smashing everyday cuppa, while his Earl Grey is a perfectly aromatic, pleasingly sensual tea.
Few places offer the range of teas which Clive McCabe has collected, both to buy and to drink in the shop. So, how do you make the perfect cup of tea?
"Buy the best tea you can afford," he says, "and then follow the old routine: heat the pot, have freshly boiled water, stir the brew after three minutes and drink after four. My wife nearly has me divorced here in the shop because I insist on using an old kettle to make the teas. But I hate those water boilers people use, because they mean the tea is almost undrinkable."
In Clive McCabe's shop, tea is served in a plain glass Bodum teapot which holds the tea leaves in the centre. "I also like a white interior to the cup," he says, and he agrees that while there is no logic to the belief that tea tastes better from a china cup, it certainly seems to.