The meeting room is all setup and the participants took their places round the table.

In the middle of the table a couple of jugs of water, glasses, cups and a coffee plunger. Oh and the obligatory packet of chocolate biscuits. Nice. Well enough catered for at first glance considering the meeting is supposed to be an hour long. And I’m thirsty.

However, there is a problem : Where is the tea?

Actual catering at an actual meeting.

I don’t drink coffee at all these days. Not that I have anything against it, I just don’t like the taste that much (the smell is nice though as Scentsy customers know) and don’t want sugar in my drink to help it go down. Tea is my preferred hot beverage.

It isn’t just meetings in house that have this issue. “Lets catch up over a coffee…” is almost universal yet not everyone drinks coffee. Actually, I know several strange people that don’t drink hot beverages at all.

I haven’t had a cup of coffee since that trip to Mykonos July 2013 and that was only because “you’ve come all this way and you have to try it…” Alright then, strong and with crunchy bits in the bottom. Nice, ish. Before then I had not had a coffee since some time in 2010.

There is pressure to drink coffee. My wife told me not to be such a pillock and drink the stuff when someone asked to meet up, particularly if meeting with a prospect who I was trying to get to buy from me.

Also, I’ve noticed that more than one cafe or tearoom has spent a billion dollars on a fancy noisy machine to make great coffee yet presents the tea drinker with a cup of hot water and a tea bag for near the same price as the straight black. I’m using Trip Advisor to fix that anomaly and to help fellow diners find a decent cuppa. A good cafe has more than one selection of leaf tea, served in a pot, milk and sugar if needed. The comment of “is that it?” was uttered by a coffee drinker that recently bought me a cup of tea at a cafe.

Now, you may be reading this and thinking I’m a bit obsessive about a good cup of tea but think about the lengths people go for a good coffee.

So, next time you are organising a meeting or catch-up, consider the tea drinker as you would all your guests. A tip I heard from someone is to ask ahead of time what people would like and how they like it so you can be prepared. A good start to a meeting helps it get finished sooner too as it stops.

Then again, there is always the “Skype meeting” where the attendees just meet online. This saves trying to find a nice venue, travel time and best of all you can self cater! There is a lot of tools available however I prefer GoToMeeting myself.