It’s so nice to chill out in a cold wintry afternoon, sipping hot, freshlly brewed coffee or tea. Do you know what all the coffee accessories are called?  

Instant coffee is easily  made just by adding boiling water to coffee powder. We need a  coffee machine for filter or espresso coffee. The container for the  liquid is the coffee pot, and  the pot where we brew the tea in is called the teapot. We drink tea or coffee out of a cup or a mug, which is a bigger, heavier cup.

The little spoon we use to add sugar in our coffee or tea is called a teaspoon. We get the sugar from the sugar bowl. Normally, a cup goes together with a saucer, which is the little plate under the tea cup. Do you add  milk or cream  into your coffee or tea? Then it is the creamer you use to pour milk or cream, and the result  is  white coffee. If you prefer it straight without any milk, it is called black coffee.

It is always pure delight to assort coffee and tea with some cake, biscuits  (cookies in the US), fruit tart or bagel which you serve from a cake stand ( a raised flat plate that you put the cake on). Sometimes we use a small plate called a side dish, for the cake. Don’t forget the napkins or serviettes which are the little pieces of paper we use to wipe our mouth and fingers, when we finish eating.

The common, dark tea that is  drunk in Britain and Europe, made from leaves of the tea plant is called ordinary tea or plain tea or builders’ tea. A lighter version of tea that is commonly drunk in China and Japan is called green tea, while  tea made from dried or fresh flowers or leaves is called herbal tea.

QUIZ 1         simple coffee time vocabulary

QUIZ 2        how much do you know about coffee?   ( A quiz from http://www.oxfam.org.uk/education   If you wish to read about the unfairly distributed profits from the coffee industry click here )

QUIZ 3        a tea quiz