What's the difference between a coffee cup and a coffee mug? While the terms are used interchangeably, there actually is a difference. A coffee cup, per se, holds one cup of coffee. A coffee mug, on the other hand, holds more than a cup. How much coffee a coffee mug can hold depends entirely on the design of the mug.

Coffee Mug Collectors

There are a whole lot of people who collect coffee mugs, just like numismatics collect coins. I don't know what special term is used for coffee mug collectors, but I've know quite a few of them over the years. Many of the people I've known to collect coffee mugs were in the military, just like I was for 20 years.

These were people I knew as well as people I worked with. I never specifically collected coffee mugs, but I built up a collection nonetheless. It seems like I obtained a mug for every military unit I was with, for every Marine Corps birthday ball, for every recruiting function and everything between the gaps.

Some of the people I knew were fanatics about their collections, displaying them in special display cases in their homes or even at work.

A Dirty Coffee Cup is in the Mind of the Owner

Early in my military career, I cleaned a coffee mug for a senior enlisted fellow and he freaked out on me. Literally. I learned, and quite quickly I might add, that people like that wanted that nasty looking brown color on the inside of the mugs. Don't ask me why. I was constantly cleaning the coffee mugs I used.

The only time I ever saw one of the fanatics clean a coffee mug was when he left coffee in the mug, sitting out on a desk over the weekend. When he returned to work, there was green stuff floating, growing on the top of the liquid. I don't know what that stuff is, but it looks disgusting.

I'm a fanatic about coffee, but not about coffee mugs. Any coffee mug will do the trick for me. In fact, I only have four coffee mugs in my house here in the Philippines and I'm using one of them right now.

The Night Market at Subic Bay

Next to a carnival attraction called "Millennium", which is open for months out of the year, there's a night market. On the Christmas before last, one of my sisters-in-law bought a huge coffee mug from that night market and had my name "burned" onto it — "Richard" in some kind fancy writing. It held two times what a normal (if you can call any mug normal) coffee mug would hold. Now, since I'm the only Richard within a one-block radius, nobody could swipe my mug to use as their own without being seen by someone.

Alas, about two months ago, my younger son decided to make coffee for me. I was upstairs in my bedroom (where I am now) and doing my thing on the computer. By the way, my master bedroom is huge; it's big enough to hold two king-sized beds side by side. Anyway, he took my mug downstairs to get me coffee. While he was filling the coffee mug with hot water from our water dispenser, the bottle emptied. The mug was sitting on the spot where the water spillage goes, whatever you want to call it. He didn't move it before changing the water bottle and the jostling of the dispenser caused the mug to fall off and onto the floor. It's a tile-covered cement floor, I might add.

All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty-Dumpty together again. Or, in this case, my coffee mug. I don't know when I'll ever get another one quite like that.

Out of nothing more than curiosity, I decided to search for both "Christmas Coffee" and "Christmas Tea". I was astounded by number of results; more than 7 million for "Christmas Coffee" and more than a million for "Christmas Tea". I never would have thought about either had I not been thinking about getting a late-night cup of coffee and that's it's nearly Christmas day (within the hour).

Christmas Coffee Recipes

No, I'm not going to repeat the recipes I saw. You can see some hot Christmas coffee recipes for yourself. As I examined the recipes, I realized I would never be able to use any of them here in the Philippines without alteration.

Some ingredients I probably wouldn't be able to find: Apple-flavored syrup, cinnamon-flavored syrup, and Sterling Moon coffee (I've never even heard of it). Of the ingredients I probably could find, they wouldn't be exactly the same as the recipes called for. It's kind of irritating to know this without going into any of the local markets. I could probably find most of exact ingredients in Manila, but I'm not taking a trip like that for something like this. I value what's left of my hair.

Christmas Tea Recipes

I actually found some Christmas tea recipes, but I couldn't read them without feeling ill. The recipes called for cinnamon sticks, cloves, juices, wine and fruit. I can only take my tea with a little sugar and that's about it. I don't like it real sweet when it's iced tea and I don't like any sugar at all in hot tea.

So, what I'm finding are either recipes or specialty gift items. Maybe I shouldn't have wasted my time. I like my coffee hot and black, with a little sugar when it's strong and without sugar when it's weak and as I just said, I like my tea pretty much the same way.

Personally, I really can't tell the difference the taste of green tea as opposed to black tea or any other kind of tea. I've had a little experience, not good, with using green tea for dieting. I'll relate my experience along with other details about green tea.

Green Tea for Dieting

A few years ago, I'd say at least eight, I was introduced to something called "Chinese weight loss tea". One of my wife's friends had lost a bit of weight by drinking it and explained to me how it works. She gave me a small cardboard box, colored green, covered with Chinese writing and with the words "diet tea" on one solitary flap.

This green tea came in teabags, not as tea leaves as depicted in the small picture I provided, and it was intended as a hot drink. Since I like hot tea almost as much as I like hot coffee, I tried it for a day. I knew it was supposed to act like a mild laxative, but I could not stay out of the bathroom after drinking it. At least, not until I was completely void of everything in my system.

That was the first and last time I ever messed with anything with the words "diet tea" on it.

Green Tea Detoxification Recipes

I've been reading various articles about green tea being used as the basic ingredient for detoxification. Various forms of "detox tea" can be used to detoxify your liver and your skin. I'm sure there are other detoxifying organs involved, but I haven't read about them yet. Of course, it takes more than green tea by itself to do the job intended.

Most of the detox teas that I've read about don't even include green tea, so it seems to be a bit of a misnomer to me, even if it is a legitimate use of the word "tea".

Green Tea and Old People

While traveling in the orient at various times in my life, I noticed the old folks tended to drink hot, green tea at least a day. I don't know if it contributed to their longevity (I met a Japanese man of over a hundred years old who could get around better than my 75 year-old mother and my 73 year-old mother-in-law), but why take chances?

If something as simple as having a hot cup of green tea every day could increase your lifespan and allow you to live a healthier life at the same time, wouldn't it be worth it to include it as part of your daily diet?

Before I say anything else, I'm going to let you know that I really like chocolate-covered coffee beans. Unfortunately, chocolate-covered coffee beans don't like me at all. I'll tell you my story in a minute.

About Chocolate-Covered Coffee Beans

The name of this blog is "Coffee, Tea and Me". When I chose the name, I used a modified version of a popular phrase of the 1970s: "Coffee, tea or me?" Afterwards, I realized there are shops in shopping malls and other places named similarly that specialize in various coffee and tea products.

I haven't seen a shop like that in years, but then again, I haven't been looking for any. That's where I bought some chocolate-covered coffee beans in 1996. They kind of look like another popular candy, "M&Ms". Other than the flavor of coffee, you might mistake them for one of the specialized versions of M&Ms, like when they use almonds instead of peanuts.

Acid Reflux and Me

After a co-worker offered me a couple of chocolate-covered coffee beans that he'd bought (at the same place I bought them), I bought a batch myself. While I was at work the next day, I ate about eight of them, forgetting what they were (mistaking them for M&Ms, naturally). You can call me an idiot anytime you like. Anyway, heartburn hit me like a ton of bricks. I needed heartburn relief and I needed it fast. I went to a doctor and it was then that I found out that I had acid reflux disease.

I suffered from chronic heartburn for years, but I didn't know that I also had acid reflux disease for years. It all but destroyed my teeth, occurring mostly when I slept. In 2005, a friend suggested I use vinegar for heartburn. I was skeptical, but I tried it and it worked. I've only had to use vinegar once since then, in 2006, and haven't had any reoccurring bouts of heartburn since. No heartburn of any kind, in fact, and I think that's amazing.

Heartburn Risks

I love coffee (hot or cold), coffee-flavored candies, coffee cake, chocolate-covered coffee beans and just about anything you can think of that has coffee in it or tastes like coffee. When it comes to chocolate-covered coffee beans, however, I'm afraid I'll probably never touch them again. Nothing else has ever triggered heartburn like that — not before the incident and not since.

As much as I love coffee products, I'd rather be heartburn-free than enjoy even a minute's pleasure with chocolate-covered coffee beans.

I normally don't recycle pictures to use on multiple articles, but I really have to make an exception when it comes to coffee beans. There only so many ways to present them and hunting down new photographs is a chore in itself. Anyway, that's obviously not what this article is about. No, I just wanted to throw out some things about coffee beans that some people aren't aware of.

Coffee Beans are NOT Beans

When my 23-year old son doesn't know that coffee beans aren't real beans, it's time to mention it over and over again and as often as possible. People who aren't familiar with the history of the coffee plants, especially young people, take way too much for granted by the way things are called.

Coffee beans start out as berries on the coffee plants. They're then dried and the seeds, the part that people call the beans, are removed and dried before heading off on their next stop in the journey from the plant to your stomach.

Roasted Coffee Beans

From what I've seen, most coffee beans sold AS coffee beans in supermarkets and other such places are roasted beforehand. What I mean to say is that you usually can't find coffee beans that haven't been roasted yet. I know raw coffee beans are available; otherwise coffee roasters wouldn't be available to the general public.

I don't trust my cooking skills, much less any kind of roasting skills. I could screw up barbecued hot dogs. No, I will always leave that step of the process to others.

Coffee Grounds

I really don't have any idea why ground coffee is called "coffee grounds". I guess it was coined by some unimaginative per person way back when. I would call it coffee flakes or coffee powder (I've actually heard "coffee powder" used and it's even on some instant coffee labels), but never coffee grounds.

In most supermarkets, heck even in most supermarkets in the Philippines (where I live — no, I'm not a Filipino before anyone asks me yet again), you can buy coffee beans that only need to be ground up to be used. Usually, one or more coffee grinders are available nearby, including generic bags to put the results in.

Although coffee grinders are available for home use, it's still another area step in the process that I'll gladly leave to someone else. I won't grind coffee beans at the market and I won't grind them at home. It's just way too easy to get coffee that only needs one step from the container to the cup and I'm basically a lazy person when it comes to doing things for myself.

There is a special kind of coffee bean that I can't seem to find here in the Philippines, that I'm really fond of, but I'm not going to mention it yet. I'll save that for my next article. After reading all that I wrote above, can you guess what I'm going to be writing about? Hint: They're sold at places that have the same title as this blog (or a slight variation of using "or" instead of "and").

If Kona coffee isn't considered a gourmet coffee, it should be. An arabica variety of coffee, it has a rich, full taste sought after by coffee connoisseurs like myself. I once spotted a bag of Kona coffee at the Royal Subic store, Subic Bay Freeport Zone (adjacent to Olongapo City, Philippines) and I wanted to buy it, but it was just too expensive for my budget at the time. I haven't seen any there since.

The Kona Coffee Bean Process

A lot of people are unaware that a coffee bean is actually the seed of the fruit from a coffee plant. The very same people that say coffee isn't healthy will go on an on about eating more fruit to stay healthy. Coffee is a fruit! Specifically, it's part of a berry, a form of fruit.

I watched something on TV once about the Kona Coffee bean selection process and how they dry them and prepare them for shipping. I think it was either on the Discovery Channel or the History Channel, I can't remember.

I really don't remember the complete process. I do remember that they're sun-dried for a period of time. The Wikipedia article on Kona coffee goes into detail.

Maui Wowi

While I was searching the net for places that sell Kona Coffee, I stumbled across the "Maui Wowi Hawaiian Coffees & Smoothies" blog, which supports their main website, and simply had to laugh out loud.

I hadn't heard "Maui Wowi" since watching "Up in Smoke" back in 1979. In the movie, Tommy Chong described a marijuana joint that was composed of mostly Maui Wowi and some Labrador (a dog ate the marijuana and pooped it out and he and Richard "Cheech" Marin smoked it).

The amazing part of finding that blog is that the store is located not far from where I used to live in Phoenix, Arizona (59th Ave and Peoria in Glendale, to be exact). The next time I'm in Phoenix, I plan to stop by there and get me a cup of something. I didn't see any prices at their website, but their coffee can't be any more expensive than Starbucks or Seattle's Best.

I need a coffee maker!

What good does it do to buy a bag of gourmet coffee like Kona coffee if I don't have a coffee maker to brew it in? Most people here in the Philippines drink instant coffee, like NESCAFE, and don't have anything to brew coffee in and I haven't seen a coffee maker in any of the stores.

I guess I'm going to have to go on a search and find mission to get me something like a "Mr. Coffee" coffee maker or something.

The small picture on the left depicts a very simple kind of coffee table. You can tell that it's made of some cheap wood and that it's not very decorative at all. Coffee tables come in all shapes and sizes, usually made of some kind of wood, but not so much in recent years.

Wooden Coffee Tables

You'll be extremely lucky if you can find a new coffee table made of solid wood, straight from a tree. Most of what you see nowadays is made of some kind of wood grain laminated covering fiberboard or other kinds of pressed wood scraps.

Let's face it. Real wood furniture is extremely expensive. My bed frame is all solid wood and it cost me a pretty penny, so to speak. It's not even made of expensive wood.

When I was taking wood "shop" in high school, back in 1976, the preferred wood to use for coffee tables was called Koa, more appropriately "Acacia Koa. I was living in Hawaii at the time and they just called it "Koa".

At the time, while other kinds of wood suitable for furniture sold for 20 cents a board foot, Koa sold for 25 cents per board foot. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but it was back in 1976. Anyway, I doubt they still prefer it because of how expensive it has become due to over logging and blight. That species is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands and although there are Acacia trees where I live in the Philippines, the wood isn't the same as that obtained from the "Koa".

Glass Coffee Tables

The coffee table in my living room is made with aluminum legs supporting a glass tabletop. I'm starting to see these kinds of coffee tables everywhere furniture is sold, along with matching end tables.

Although I'd much prefer having a solid wood coffee table, I just can't afford to buy one. There's nothing wrong with glass tabletops unless you buy cheap coffee tables. The tabletop is usually very thick and isn't easy to break.

When I was growing up, my brothers and other male relatives would put their feet up on the coffee table at my parents' house. My parent always yelled at them that it wasn't a foot stool and to get their feet down.

Well, you can't do that with a glass coffee table unless you want to break it. Sure, you could get away with it for a while, but eventually you'd do something to separate the tabletop from the support beams and that would be the end of that.

The Invention of the Coffee Table

According to sources, the coffee table was invented in Britain during the Victorian Era, between June 1837 and January 1901. Perhaps it was invented specifically as a coffee table at the time, but I think similar tables were invented much earlier in the orient.

The Japanese, for example, have been using low profile tables, some that look like coffee tables, for centuries. They use them for dining and not as coffee tables. Speaking of dining, my wife and I used to dine from our coffee table when we lived in the US, before we owned our own home. We were eating while watching TV and we couldn't see the TV from wherever the kitchen table (if we had one) was.

Now, I'm sure that coffee tables are made of other things besides wood, glass and aluminum, but I can't think of anything right now. As for me, I hope to someday start building one out of empty coffee cans and jars. With as much coffee as I drink, it shouldn't take very long at all.

For years, doctors have been telling people to reduce their consumption of drinks containing high levels of caffeine, picking on coffee as the number one source. While over-indulgence in things that contain caffeine can have adverse effects on your health, how much is too much is open to interpretation.

What is caffeine?

Caffeine is an alkaloid that acts as a stimulant and a mild diuretic. Caffeine is called guaranine when found in guarana, mateine when found in mate, and theine when found in tea; all of these names are synonyms for the same chemical compound.

Caffeine has the effect of temporarily warding off drowsiness and restoring alertness. Humans have been consuming plants containing caffeine since the beginning of time — it occurs naturally in many plants besides coffee and tea, even though coffee and tea get the most publicity for it.

Caffeine is added to soft drinks, especially cola-type soft drinks. I won't go into detail about it since I could spend a day on that topic alone.

Despite the negativity surrounding caffeine, caffeine continues to play a vital role in the health of people all around the world. Again, it's a topic all in itself and I won't go into detail here.

Antioxidants and Flavonoids

Both coffee and tea are high in antioxidants. An antioxidant is a molecule capable of slowing or preventing the oxidation of other molecules. Oxidation is a chemical reaction that transfers electrons from a substance to an oxidizing agent. Oxidation reactions can produce free radicals, which start chain reactions that damage cells.

Flavonoids are known as antioxidants, but they have other significant properties that I can't explain without writing a textbook or plagiarizing someone else. Green tea is higher in flavonoids than other teas, and the amount of flavonoids in coffee is questionable depending on what kind of coffee we're dealing with.

Health Benefits

Antioxidants have been proven to have anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial and anti-cancer properties. Only a small amount of flavonoids are required, as antioxidants, to show immediate health benefits.

It makes sense to include coffee and tea, if you don't dislike the taste, as part of your diet. It's not known if caffeine-free versions are as effective as those containing caffeine, but it's worth trying if you're on a caffeine-restrictive diet.

Green tea has been called the green tea fat burner recently because of what it does to your metabolism and the anti-fat and anti-carcinogenic effects it has on your system.

Personally, I've been drinking coffee and tea as long as I can remember. I don't have trouble sleeping, a common side-effect of ingesting too much caffeine, and it doesn't cause me to be jittery. Other than old injuries, I have no health concerns. I'll soon be 48-years old and I feel great. You can call me a coffee and tea poster child, if you wish, and it won't offend me at all.

Recommended Reading

• Coffee May Help Prevent Liver Cancer
• Feed Your Face: Green Tea

After watching the employees at one of the Starbucks locations in Phoenix, Arizona, my wife decided to do an experiment to see if she could make coffee that tasted as good as their coffee. More specifically, she wanted to reproduce the taste of their lattes.

Latte is Italian for Milk

Lattes were invented in the US. In Italy, latte means milk. It's probably okay to order a caffè latte in Italy now, after all the publicity of the drink, but years ago it would have fetched you a glass of milk.

In the US, a latte is quite simply a cup of coffee made with milk instead of water.

It Starts With Espresso

Starbucks has machines which produce espresso, a concentrated coffee beverage brewed by forcing very hot water under high pressure through coffee that has been ground to a consistency between extremely fine and powder. Espresso, which was invented in Italy, is used as the base lattes, cappuccinos and mochas.

My wife noticed that two shots of espresso were added to the large drinks at Starbucks, while added only one shot to the smaller drinks.

How to Mimic a Latte

It's easy to do if you have your own personal espresso machine. What if you don't? Here's how my wife did it:

She filled a cup with milk (whole milk, not 2%, 1% or skim milk), heated it in the microwave oven for 2 minutes, added two spoons of coffee power and stirred. I'm talking about the spoons you eat with, not teaspoons for measuring.

What you end up is a strong cup of coffee, a simple latte. If you want to turn it into a cappuccino, add whip cream to the top. If you want to turn it into a mocha, add a spoonful of sweetened, powdered chocolate.

Why Starbucks instead of at home?

If it's so easy to make coffee that tastes like Starbucks at home, then why don't people do that instead of spending much more money at coffee shops like that?

People are always "on the go" and don't take the time at home to enjoy the simple pleasures. They stop by coffee shops on the way to work or on the way home. It's the fast-paced societies that keep companies like Starbucks in business.

I always knew that tea was a healthy drink, but I didn't know it had healthy external uses as well. One of the external uses is in the treatment of sweaty feet, which causes foot odor.

Stinky Feet

Over-the-counter treatments sold by most pharmacies are either expensive or don't work or both. Using foot powders can help to draw the sweat away from the feet, but the kind that are supposed to get rid of the odor usually have a scent that's just as bad.

Charcoal sole inserts help to reduce the odor, but that's all they do. They don't help to cure the cause of the odor. Most of the other foot treatments don't get rid of the cause either.

Stinky feet start out as sweaty feet. You can have sweaty feet without ever wearing shoes that cover the feet. People who wear sandals all the time can have feet as stinky as anyone else. Odor causing bacteria thrive in the sweat. The optimum solution would be to wash the sweat from the feet frequently, but who has that kind of time luxury?

Natural Cures

In the Philippines, where I live, people have been using a form of alum called tawas as a deodorant and it works as well as anything sold commercially for much more. The problem is that it also whitens the skin by removing the top layer. It's used as a skin whitener as often as a deodorant.

Tea contains a natural tannic acid that will kill the bacteria that lives in the sweat of the feet, as the article on "How to Treat Sweaty Feet With Tea" explains. The tannic acid will also help to prevent blisters.

I've used tawas in the past, but I've never used tea. I used to have feet so stinky, I was afraid to take my shoes off in public places. The tawas worked, but all the tanned skin from my feet came off along with the odors. Tea can stain the feet, but the article I mentioned tells you how to remove the stains. My feet are starting to give off odors again and it's time to give tea a try.