It seems that all of the coffee drinks in US coffee shops start with espresso as the base. It may not be true for all coffee shops, but it's certainly true for Starbucks and Seattle's Best.

Unlike most people who come and go and pay little attention to anything but what they're doing at the time, I observe everything that goes on around me. I have seen how both of these companies make coffee drinks — I purposely observed every facet from start to finish.

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There's one thing about coffee that doesn't sit well with people who don't make a lot of money. It's expensive. It's always going to be expensive. My wife told me about how she had rice coffee when she was young because her family was too poor to buy coffee. So I knew about rice coffee, but I didn't know there was also a corn coffee.

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There are some things in life where I will accept no substitutes. Coffee and tea are two of these things.

This is the second of two articles I wrote for my main site. This one was originally published in April of 2008 and I've moved it here (with minor rewriting) because this site is about coffee and tea and the other is not. Keep in mind when it was written as I made references:

Recently, I was reminded by Claire (A little piece of me) that while some people like lemon in their tea, others do not. She, like me, does not like lemon in her tea. She needs "proper" tea, whatever the heck that means.

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You're probably scratching your head and asking yourself "What the heck is Postum?" It would be more appropriate to ask yourself "What the heck WAS Postum?"

I originally wrote this article in February of 2007 and placed it on my main site. Little did I know at the time that Kraft Foods would be discontinuing the production of Postum in the fall of 2007. Although the article drew quite a few visitors then, and received a few comments, I believe it's better suited to be archived on this site instead of my main site because this site is about coffee and that one is not. Simple enough right? Anyway, this is the first of two articles I'll be moving over here. Enough with the explanation and on with the story — bear in mind that it was written in February of 2007:

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When non-dairy creamers were introduced either in the late 1950s or early 1960s, people didn't know that one of the ingredients isn't good for you at all. The use of non-dairy creamers peaked in the 1980s, but there are people who have always used one form of milk or another instead of buying into the non-dairy creamer routine.

The bad ingredient I'm talking about is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (or fat).

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I think I drink way too much coffee during any given day. Although it's not keeping me up at night, it can't be good for me. I think if and when I switch to decaffeinated coffee, I'll suffer from some severe caffeine withdrawal headaches for a couple of days.

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It's amazing to me how one thing can be called by so many different things in the English language. Sometimes it's even something that's imported from another language. If you try to use any of the terms instead of the word "coffee" in many foreign countries (like my home in the Philippines), you'll just get a blank stare.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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