We recently gifted each other with these very beautiful and very special Polish Pottery mugs. Mine is on the left. Somehow they seem to make the morning coffee special.
Isn't it nice to have good mugs? I have a collection of mugs, and ceramic cups which I have gotten all over the place. It is fun to have a bit of ritual about it, and I have mugs for different things, my wife when we first met used to just grab one from my cabinet, and I'd have to bite my tongue as she was using a tea mug for coffee, or my sunday morning mug on a Tuesday evening... I know I am weird.
Larry, my relationship to coffee is complicated, started drinking it in prep school, where it was just a Caffeine Delivery System, and we had either instant in the microwave, or a secret coffee maker hidden somewhere, no refrigerator access also, so it was black with sugar or nothing. I quickly eschewed sugar, and got used to drinking it black for convenience sake. I can say it is an acquired taste. For the longest time I thought it was bitter horrible stuff. It grows on you.
I got into tea when I was over in Russia, where that is pretty much what you drink to exclusion of water. We, when I got back, didn't really have much options for GOOD tea in the states, loose leaf, so until people like Upton Tea Imports etc... started getting available on the internet back in the early 90's I stuck to coffee.
Nowadays I mostly drink tea, and have a series of thermoses, tumblers, devices, and cheats so I don't have to rely on the restaurant I'm at for a cup, they generally have one of those horrible boxes of stale bags of Twinnings and Celestial Seasoning that has been there for a year.
I am partial to a good cup of black coffee on occasion, and I have trained myself to drink it black, I will do that in a restaurant. At home I have a mocha pot, and will make myself two shots of espresso, dilute it with a similar quantity of hot water, and add devonshire cream and a little bit of vanilla sugar.
So I agree with your point on service, I'd say in practice most people I know that are coffee drinkers take it in stride though. One reason for it, is that one of the key things about coffee is that it be hot, and it cools quick in those shallow six oz cups you get, it is generally not difficult to get it back to the sugar and cream you like by taste.
Still prefer tea most of the time for drinking, but coffee is a nice change of pace.
Cheers,
TBS