This is an all ears English podcast, episode 23, 91, how to connect over coffee habits in English.
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How do you like your coffee?
Do you prefer coffee or tea?
Today, find out how to build a fun English conversation by talking about coffee drinking habits.
Listen in today. Connected speech, word stress, listening for specific information, pronouncing the past tense correctly.
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Hello, Michelle, how are you today?
Good, Lindsay, how are you?
I'm fantastic. No complaints.
No complaints. Uh, what are we getting into today?
Well, I have a question, Lindsay.
Are you addicted to coffee?
Michelle? I have to say I pretty much am.
I think I think chemically I am slightly addicted, but actually I was surprised.
I went to decaf and I experienced some headaches like the first day.
And then I was good.
So I think chemically I'm not, but I think in terms of ritual, I am.
You know, what about you?
Tell me your take on coffee.
Yeah, I definitely am.
Wait, so you only drink decaf now?
No. I know I'm kind of in a weird place.
I'm mixing it in. I'm doing like half calf and the beans, normal beans and the decaf beans, I'm mixing all in.
Sounds like you have a whole lab over there.
Yeah. I don't know.
I don't know what I'm doing.
Well, yeah. Well, for me, I have a cup in the morning and then I used to be like, okay, that's it, the one cup and I'm done.
But now I always have with lunch or sometime in the afternoon and that is, I think it definitely did become more of a ritual.
I mean, I'm sure also my body needs the caffeine at this point, but it's also, I know what you mean about just that feeling of, I'd like to have a cup of coffee with my lunch and I don't know.
It's routine. It is, I don't know why.
But recently we did an episode, actually on the Business English podcast. That was episode 394 and that was, What's Your Daily Routine?
Morning edition. It was part two of a series.
The first part was on Euler's English.
It was about the evening, I believe.
But we were talking about coffee and Lindsay, you mentioned that we should do an episode about bonding or connecting with someone over your coffee habits, which is such a fun idea.
So that's where the idea for this episode came from.
So thank you. We're going to get into it today.
This is really fun.
I mean, this is such a huge conversation topic, a great way to connect with someone.
What do you think, Lindsay?
A hundred percent, a hundred percent.
And for our listeners who may not be coffee drinkers, you can just insert whatever thing you like to drink on a regular basis into here.
Right. Because you can also have conversations about your tea drinking habits.
I think coffee drinkers are particularly, um, I don't know, into their coffee or into how their coffee integrates with their day.
But tea drinkers are too Michelle.
So this is the basis of an amazing connection moment for our listeners.
That's right. Yeah, absolutely.
So this is going to be huge.
So guys, make sure that stay tuned because towards the end, we are going to give you a poll that you can do on Spotify.
Guys, we've been doing these polls.
If you're listening on Spotify, you can see polls and we do a poll with every episode, but these special ones we announced on the show and then we announced the results.
So, listen up to see what that poll will be so that you can interact with us and we can hear your opinions.
Yes! Amazing. And Michelle, can I take just a minute here to say thank you to our listeners who left a review and Apple podcast and Spotify.
So I want to say a huge thank you to Catherine, who left us a five star review and said it's definitely our show is definitely one of her favorites.
special thank you to Paul.
Polly of in the US on March 21, also a five star review Michelle.
I know and Szy 101 791 from China as well as Stacey Lee 111 and Vihan Kare from India as well as last OO 10.
Michelle, these are all five star reviews.
But either way, no matter how you review our show, we appreciate reading your review, right, Michelle?
Michelle Zehngut Absolutely, yeah.
Lindsay sent a bunch over yesterday.
I know. So exciting to see.
So thank you. Really.
We, we truly look at them.
So Yeah, thank you very much. Um, so alright, let's get into it.
Let's talk about some things you can say this is kind of a we're just really throwing things out here because it's such a huge topic.
So Lindsey, what's one question you can ask one conversation topic that comes up a lot with The basics here, right?
So how many cups of coffee do you drink a day.
Right? Right. And how would you answer that Michelle?
You could say I drink about two cups a day.
Right? Yeah. People so yeah, that's kind of how Lindsay, that's kind of how we started out.
Right? And it just ends up leading into so many different things.
And honestly, I think usually what we're asking this question, we're trying to get a sense of if we're normal, right?
I drink four. How many do you drink?
Right. Right. Exactly.
So, okay, here's another one.
Do you make your coffee at home or do you get it out?
Yeah, exactly and so this really is and it's so interesting because this is one of the things that becomes a routine in our day and we usually have a go to mode.
We usually don't do, most people do love routine and they either make it at home every day or they get it out.
I personally do both.
Yeah, like most people who like to make it at home like to let me save money, but I buy the beans at home and then I go and buy one in the afternoon now, so it's not saving any money at all.
That's funny. Yeah, I mean my morning coffee is always at home.
Actually, I was thinking I should, just this morning actually, I was in such a rush with my kids.
Normally I drink it before we go, but I didn't have time.
So I brought it in the car and it wasn't that hot and I thought, okay, this is fine, but then I started to drink a sorry for the story.
It's gross, but no, I started to drink it.
And, you know, when you drink something and it goes down like the wrong pipe basically.
And I was like, and then I like ended up spitting like all this coffee.
Oh, Michelle. I'm sorry.
You had a red - This is all today, already today.
This was today. So then I was thinking, because I knew we were doing this episode and I thought, oh gosh, if I'm so addicted that I couldn't even go, you know, I had to have it in the morning.
I couldn't, I was coming home then I could have had it, my gosh, anyway.
Wow, okay. We all have our own challenges with our morning coffee, but you're right.
If for some reason I can't get my coffee, like let's say, for example, I've forgotten to buy the beans on the weekend and then I wake up, I will be really annoyed.
Yeah. No, it's true.
And then one time I was going over to a friend's house and I know that she doesn't drink coffee And it was time for my afternoon coffee.
And I felt bad asking if she had coffee because I don't think that she does.
So then the next time I was going over to another friend's house.
And before, now every time I text my friends like, oh, do you have coffee or if not, I'm gonna stop and get a coffee.
And it's like. Yeah.
It becomes a real thing.
A whole thing. A whole thing, yeah.
Yeah. And another way that we like to talk about drinking coffee is how we like to take our coffee.
Often we say, you know, how do you take your coffee?
You might hear that in a more formal restaurant though, right?
How do you take your coffee?
Or if you're at a party and someone is actually serving you coffee.
But we also talk about this with friends.
Personally, I like my coffee black.
I take my coffee black.
Michelle, how do you like your coffee.
Do you like your coffee strong with sugar with cream milk?
I like my coffee with half and half.
Okay. And usually just that but if I'm out, I will put some sort of little flavor perhaps in it.
Yeah. And then I mean just like a sugar free vanilla or something and then I would like to have like cinnamon on top.
Oh, very nice. Very nice.
It's kind of funny because as you travel, right, you see that in different countries coffee is taken differently, right?
Here in the US. It's a lot of just personal choices.
When I go to France, when I go to Paris, it's often cafe au lait, right?
You can I guess you can get a cappuccino and you can get an espresso espresso but café au lait.
I think I have a feeling it's kind of rare in France and our listeners should speak up and correct me if I'm wrong to actually have black coffee.
I guess that would just be a shot of espresso.
Right? But it's not the same thing in the drip coffee is not espresso.
I like to get an Americano or a Decaf Americano, but it's not the same thing.
Black coffee and espresso.
Yeah. I don't often get an espresso.
I like espressos. Dan gets those a lot, but I mostly just want a regular coffee.
Yeah. Yeah. Me too.
Hold it in your hands and drink it.
Enjoy the ritual again.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
What else would we say, Michelle, to someone?
What else would you say?
you could say, how do you drink your coffee?
Um, what does that mean?
How do you drink your coffee?
I don't think I've heard that.
You don't, you don't think you've heard. I mean, it's basically the same thing as how do you take your coffee?
For me, I don't really hear how do you take your coffee as interesting.
Maybe it's like a Northern new England thing.
I grew up in Northern new England.
Yeah. I, I think it's maybe it's a little old fashioned.
How do you take your coffee?
I don't know. I don't know, but yeah, I would more likely and you say, how do you drink your coffee?
Michelle, we don't really find regional differences between us very often.
We, Aubrey and I find them all the time because you live in the West. But you and I, this is one of the first. Interesting, I like it.
Very interesting. Yes.
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Okay, this is a fun episode.
Michelle, is there any - Where do we go from here?
Okay, well, now we're just gonna have some fun.
So I'm gonna - A joke that you might hear, some - Well, you drink your coffee black, but my dad drinks his - He could have - He could pour all the cream.
and sometimes you might hear something like, do you want some coffee with your cream?
Have you ever heard that?
Oh yeah, for sure we make this joke with a lot of things, right?
Um, what would be something else?
I don't know if you have like, um, chocolate syrup in your ice cream.
You could say, do you want some ice cream with your chocolate syrup?
Maybe if somebody puts a lot of ketchup on their French fries, something like that.
I love it. Yeah, I feel like often you'll see in a movie or in real life, someone with the sugar, you know, you go to like a diner and you have the big sugar thing in a in a glass.
That tall sugar. Yeah, it looks like eight ounces of sugar.
Yeah, just pouring forever and like having a conversation and pouring and takes up half the glass.
No wonder we have so much diabetes in this country.
Yeah, there's a lot of that.
Yeah. So but yeah, so it's like you might hear the joke.
Do you want some coffee with your cream?
So it's just saying you're putting so much cream.
Oh, that the coffee is secondary at that point.
So yeah, that's a little joke that you might hear.
And then another one is drinking your coffee black like Lindsay.
And then a lot of times somebody will say something or you might even see it on a mug or something like don't talk to me until I've had my coffee in the morning, right?
Oh yeah, you see a lot of t -shirts.
I had a tank top that said something about coffee.
I can't remember what it said now but there's lots of little say a little sayings you can get if you go to that and beyond you can yeah, you can make sure that your values towards coffee are known when you enter your house if you want to.
Right. Exactly. Exactly.
And then there's also coffee snob or coffee connoisseur Lindsey Are you a coffee snob?
No, I'm really not.
I mean, I don't like the cheapest brands like Folgers or the really basic stuff.
But I'm not a snob.
I don't need pour over.
I don't need the fanciest most expensive coffee.
I mean, you know, I just like dark roast rather than light roast. I don't like I don't like the light roast, even though I think they say it's better for you.
It has more antioxidants.
Because the dark roast is kind of burnt out.
From what I understand, I guess.
But I like I care about the how dark or light it is for sure.
Yeah. So does that make me a coffee snob?
I don't know. Michelle, what about you?
I'm not a coffee snob.
I don't want it to taste like water, but other than that, I don't know.
Every once in a while, I normally don't taste the… I don't know.
I guess my taste isn't very sophisticated.
But every once in a while I do try a different type of coffee and I can recognize, oh, this is better than what I usually have. Yeah.
For sure. For sure.
Love it. Love it. But I wouldn't say I'm a coffee snob.
I think we have a couple more minutes.
So I just want to do a quick debate with you.
I have some questions here.
Okay let's do it. All right well we've already kind of talked about this one and these guys are topics that will come up in conversation.
So caffeine or no caffeine Lindsey.
Oh Michelle half calf right now, half calf.
Half calf. Only caffeine over here all right.
You know what happened, I cut out caffeine and I realized my sleep got worse.
So I'm going back to caffeine.
Yeah, I thought I was gonna sleep better cutting out caffeine going to decaf and my sleep actually got worse so all the research is debunked right here all right Lindsay Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts cut takes you like it or now hot takes Michelle how do I answer this I'm okay with both I'm okay with both what I love about Duncan is that it feels incredibly Boston.
Every time I fly into Logan airport, there's a Duncan right there.
And I hear the accents and I think I'm home.
Right. And I love that.
I love that. I don't have an issue.
We could talk this could be another great connection moment for our listeners Starbucks has made a lot of new rules lately.
They're changing their business model.
They're eliminating food.
There's a lot to be talking about.
Not eliminating it, but they're reducing some food.
Sorry. Oh, they're taking out some kinds of foods.
They're changing the bathroom rules.
Guys, there's a lot you could get into if you do a little research on recent changes in Starbucks business model.
You could debate with people, you could see what they think about the changes happening.
There's a lot there.
Interesting. I happen to like Starbucks more than Dunkin's coffee.
I do notice that. But yeah, there's a whole, you know, sometimes you talk to somebody and you say Starbucks and you're almost embarrassed to say it because they're - Yeah, sure.
Yeah. So interesting.
All right. I think we should move on to a role play.
I think we should too, Michelle.
Yeah. I think if we got into Starbucks we could go on and on.
I have a lot of things to say there, but let's get into a role play to show our listeners the key vocab.
So here we're waiting in line at a coffee shop and we don't know each other.
A great opportunity to meet someone new.
Right? All right. Here we go.
Have you tried the coffee at this place yet?
It's amazing. And trust me, I am a coffee snob.
Oh, me too. It's okay.
How many cups of coffee do you drink a day?
Well, if I'd say I drink about four or five cups a day you?
Maybe three or four, but everyone knows don't talk to me until I've had my coffee in the morning.
Oh me too, how do you drink your coffee?
Two creamers, one sugar and always hot even in the summer.
Whoa, I can't do that, it's iced coffee for me.
And no Starbucks ever.
Oh, totally agree. I like it from mom and pop shops.
The best and always with caffeine.
Yes, why would you bother otherwise?
I love it. I love it.
Yeah. So again, people make themselves known.
This is another one of those topics where you can make yourself known, you and your values through what you say about your coffee habits.
Right. This is why we love this topic.
Um, so a couple of the vocab, Michelle that we used here.
I said, trust me, I am a coffee snob, right?
Snob, snob. Okay. And then I said, how many cups of coffee do you drink a day?
So that's a good question.
And I said that I drink about four or five cups a day.
And I asked you, usually you would turn that back and ask the other person in that moment.
Yes. And then I said, but everyone knows don't talk to me until I've had my coffee in the morning.
Yeah, yeah. And you're not saying that to me right now.
Right? Because of course we're talking and we're waiting in line for your coffee, but you're, you know, it's a saying, your exaggerating a bit and that is how you, you're, that's how you are in the morning, you know, people know to stay away.
And I said, oh, me too.
And how do you drink your coffee?
So Lindsey, this one sounds, so you would say, how do you take your coffee?
I guess it may, obviously it makes sense, right?
How do you drink your coffee, but yeah, I absolutely grew up hearing, how do you take your coffee?
How do you check your coffee?
I've heard it too, but definitely I, well, it's funny because guys, this question actually could be confusing.
How do you drink your coffee?
I mean what, like I don't know, out of a cup.
like no, I bring my lips and I push it back.
But when you hear this generally people would be saying like, what do you put?
Do you put anything in it?
Do you like it? But that's really what this question means.
Yeah. And I actually what I like better than both of these is how do you like your coffee?
How do you like your coffee?
How do you like your coffee?
Or or you can say how do you like to take your coffee?
Oh, no, we're making it more complex. How do you drink your coffee?
Or how do you like your coffee.
Perfect. Exactly. Um, and then I told you and I said, I like it.
Always hot. That's another thing people like to talk about, right?
Some people, they drink hot coffee all year round.
It could be 90 degrees outside.
No, I, I, I switch over to ice.
Although my morning coffee is always hot.
What about you? Yeah, me too.
I feel exactly the same way.
Something about the morning I've got to have hot coffee, but in the summer I'll do ice in the afternoon.
You know, warm day in the winter, maybe that kind of thing.
Yeah. Right. All right.
Is it always hot even in the summer?
And I said, Well, I can't do that.
It's iced coffee for me.
And that's an interesting way to say what I What I have is iced coffee.
It's iced coffee for me.
It's, maybe we'll do another episode about that.
That's a pretty common construction.
It's, it's iced coffee for me, right?
Yes, I love it. Michelle.
This This has been so good and before we do our takeaway, we do have a poll for our listeners.
Yes, guys on Spotify you can find this poll now.
The question is just coffee or tea.
Yeah. What do our listeners like to drink?
This will actually be a really interesting poll to report back because I know tea is huge around the globe, right?
But I know coffee is big too.
So I'm rooting for coffee.
I hope coffee wins.
I have a feeling it's not going to win.
Really? I think kind of, I think.
Yeah. All right. We're going to report back in the results guys.
So make sure you're listening over in Spotify.
Michelle, where should we leave our listeners?
This was a long episode I just saw, but that's because this is such a good conversation topic.
There's so much to say.
You can talk really for a very long time to somebody about coffee.
Um, and um, you know, just give it a try.
That's, this is a great way to connect with someone and that's what we're all about.
Yeah. And we're always looking for ways we can learn more about the person and share more about ourselves than the topic at hand.
This is about so much more than coffee.
This is about lifestyle.
This is about choices.
This is maybe about budget even.
How much money are you willing to pay for coffee?
We can learn so much about people.
It really is endless.
So yeah, give it a try and definitely take our poll.
We're excited to see the results.
All right, Michelle, I'll see you on the next episode.
Take care. Bye. Bye, you too.
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