IN AMERICA it was a Coke or a coffee. In Russia it could be a glass of mineral water or even a packet of cigarettes. In China it's a cup of tea, or rather a bowl of tea, invariably decorated with blue painted dragons and with a lid to keep it warm, which is offered at formal meetings and which is the social lubricant of choice.
As with so many customs in the Orient, there is an etiquette involved based on common sense. The lid on the bowl has a ridge inside so that when taken off and held upside down the condensation from the tea does not drip on the table.
This is the sort of simple thing you only realise when you find yourself searching in quiet panic for a tissue to wipe the official's polished table, having put the lid down the wrong way.
Tea is as popular and as ubiquitous in China as coffee in the United States. Taxi drivers sip tea from jar shaped bottles. Our Chinese lesson will not begin until the teacher has placed a bowl of tea on each desk and filled it from a thermos flask.
The brands too are as varied as coffee. The best kinds have exotic names like Dragon Well Tea from Hangzhou, Silver Needle Tea from the Junshan Mountains or Cloud and Mist Tea from the Lushan Hills.
In tea houses, always full of gossiping men, the tea can be ordinary green or black tea or a scented tea with bits of orchids, jasmine, roses, sweet osmanthus and plum flowers. Customers pay to sit down and can drink as many refills as they like. The first bowl is never the best. The fragrance and taste improves as the tea gets weaker.
Pouring water on the tea, which is often drunk throughout a meal, is an art form in itself. In teahouses and some restaurants a tea waiter directs a jet of hot liquid into the bowl from a bronze kettle held high in the air, never spilling a drop.
He returns to refill the cup if you place the lid - upside down of course - on the table.
The lid has other uses: if opened just a little it holds back the bits of flower and tea leaves still on the surface while you drink. There's nothing like a mouthful of osmanthus and jasmine petals to bring home this obvious point.
The guide books advise that if you are a guest and the host pours hot water over the same leaves three times, then you've exhausted not just the tea leaves but your welcome. Like here's your hat, what's your hurry.
But the younger generation of Chinese don't pay much attention to such things. In fact many are inclined to buy, Lipton's Biggler Quality No. 1 tea in tea bags, blended and packed in Australia. Imported Earl Grey tea from London proved a big hit with a Chinese couple at dinner.
"The Chinese tea makers have done little to improve the blends because they have had a monopoly," said a Beijing university graduate. "They are being undermined by the imported brands which are becoming fashionable with students."
The custom of tea drinking itself is under attack in some of the elitist areas of today's China. Coffee, unknown in much of the country 10 years ago, is now common in larger restaurants and hotel lobbies. Chinese yuppies order cappuccino at pavement cafes which have appeared in the fashionable Sunlitan district of Beijing in recent months. Some young people will drink Coke with their meal, rather than tea.
A Chinese businessman recalled for me his first experience of coffee while at university in 1985. "It tasted bitter and unpleasant," he said. "Now I'll drink coffee but only with milk and sugar to make it taste better."
He also recalled having his first Coke about the same time. "I bought two cans, one for myself and one for a friend," he said. "It tasted awful, just like herbal medicine, and after a few sips we threw it away."