As a teenager, I did not instantly take to either tea or coffee. Indeed I only took tea to extend the time I could stay up with my parents before being sent to bed. In my case I did not like milky drinks so did not take to either as served at home.

My breakthrough experience was on the return from a school trip (aged roughly 17) when a colleague ordered black coffee. I suddenly realised that my "taste" for coffee had been previously influenced by the milk rather than the coffee. At that stage, of course, we in the UK (in the 1970s) pitifully had little experience outside instant coffee. It took a sisterly present of a coffee filter to reveal the delights of "real coffee" a few years later.

When InterRailing in 1977 in Spain I loved the coffee. It was not only black and strong but was accompanied with a slender glass of tap water. An excellent way to wake up in the morning without drying out!

When I got to know Mrs Oregano - a non-British national - she told me she was horrified that we were an instant coffee country when most of the rest of the world used "real coffee". It did not take much convincing to avoid instant coffee and I helped found a (filter) coffee club at work.

My first business trip to Italy in 1986 provided me with my coffee reference point. At our conference we had regular offerings of deletable fresh-pressed orange juice and espresso (the best coffee I have ever tasted by then). Although at home we initially could not keep this standard it was firmly in my memory. In 1997 we purchased a Gaggia espresso machine which has subsequently died and been replaced. But Italian coffee remains forever the coffee benchmark. I have been less than impressed by Starbucks which while producing Italian-style coffee seems to burn its beans.

When we visited Cádiz on the southern Atlantic coast of Spain. For breakfast I hoped for the double espresso with tall glass of still water. What did I get? I got the best-tasting double espresso for the last year or so but pathetically no water. That had to be ordered separately. After 30 years is this a move upmarket or simply intransigence? Having noted that Spanish customers seemed to get their free water maybe we are just gullible foreigners.

I thought that the simple glass of water was a great gesture to rehydrate; without using one of the big water brands!

I hoped for a last great coffee at Malaga airport on the way home but was disappointed. It was all machine coffee that tasted like instant.