Friday 24 September 2010

Savoury or sweet?

It really is the small things in life that make things good. Sunshine, duckies, coffee, cupcakes, new laptops (ok, that's not so small – I'll tell you about it later). I buy a daily coffee at our work cafeteria. As soon as our barista sees my takeaway coffee cup entering the room, she knows that my order will be a trim latte. It always tastes good and is a little treat I can look forward to each day.

And then there is Friday. Apart from the obvious, general jubilation associated with Fridays, Friday is cheese scone day at work. It is the only day of the week when I will buy food to go with my coffee treat – kind of a reward for making it through another week without causing too much mayhem and destruction to everyone around me.

As I sat down to enjoy my latte and scone today, a colleague, Claire, noted that I should be drinking tea instead. Apparently savoury foods, such as cheese scones, go with tea and sweet treats, like chocolate and cake, go with coffee. What?? I quickly educated her in my aversion to tea and my love for coffee; this was not going to wash with Claire. Another colleague, Henry, wandered past. "Mmm, is that a cheese scone?" he asked. "I might get one."

The question was quickly put to him: should cheese scones (being a savoury food) be eaten with tea or coffee? What was he going to have with it? Henry, like me, replied that he’d never really thought about it. Once again, Claire remained unconvinced. She gave us an extreme example of a coffee-tea crime; apparently she knows someone who adds kahlua (coffee flavoured) to his tea. Yuck. (I'd agree – tea is yuck.) Henry went off to buy a cheese scone; I don't know what drink he settled on. I'm guessing it was tea, as I haven't heard Claire tell him off yet for mixing savoury with coffee.

So, what do you think? I agree that there are certain food and drink matches that work perfectly, and others that probably aren't good combinations, but how about the whole savoury/sweet/tea/coffee thing?

(I remain unconvinced; almost anything can complement either coffee. The same goes for chocolate. Mmm, chocolate.)

5 comments:

Alli said...

I've never heard anyone who was THAT serious about it but I've heard certain foods go with certain drinks. Personally I only care for bland things to have a flavored drink with it (for instance sweet tea with pasta alfredo instead of just water). Beyond that it doesn't really matter.

I love reusable cups. I try to bring mine in whenever I can. My university actually gives a mug to every student with a meal plan (1 a year). It's a great system and encourages students to not use a paper cup every day.

Grannyg said...

Yeah no.. Tell that to the older generation who didn't drink coffee but enjoyed a cup of tea with everything! I've read many many food books and never came across that. Its probably a quirk of her family

merinz said...

I have never ever really thought about it. But - on reflection, something sweet,like chocolate, does go really well with coffee. Especially dark chocolate. And is not something I would contemplate eating when drinking tea.

I drink both, but tea is rather bland compared to coffee.

Kelly said...

It's simple; coffee goes with everything. :-D

Anjuli said...

Hmmm you just need to think of High Tea and Devonshire Tea to know that sweet things go with Tea as well as coffee. Each to your own I say, I drink Tea and Coffee and will happily mix with sweet or savoury :)