Summed up in a big cup

I am too young to have been swept up in the coffee shop revolution when it first invaded.

In fact, I actually recall being embroiled in a parental battle of wills to be allowed to watch Friends, that oh-so-tantalising "12" certificate on the video shielding my nine-year-old self from the world of intriguing fantasticness that lay beyond, where everything that was brilliant about being a New York singleton in the '90s could be boiled down, topped up with cream and drunk out of a really big cup.

While faux-Italian Americana was working its frothy way into every crevice of the country and Brits were discovering the sheer giddy joy of reeling off a coffee order in the manner of a dating ad '“ "tall, skinny, extra-strong mochalochalatte with an edge of soy, a sneeze of nutmeg and a GSOH" '“ I was still a Kia Ora devotee, working out how the seven times table and I could co-exist in harmony.

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This squash penchant has never subsided, but remained a Bravo family passion to this day.

Some households are wine people. My brothers and I can identify a 1993 low sugar orange, lemon and pineapple Robinsons at a sniff (and some day I hope to inherit the cellar full of dusty bottles of Fruit and Barley, along with that rare vintage carton of Um Bongo we keep in a glass case and show off at parties).

Even the joyful arrival of Costa in Worthing failed to convince me that there was a place for biscotti in my life that couldn't instead be satisfied by a couple of 5p ice pops and a Chomp bar.

For this I blame my father. Anyone who remembers 12 will remember it's a fragile time for the ego where parental misdemeanours are concerned.

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So it was with shameless abandon that dear daddy took me into the shiny burgundy land of beverage promise and proceeded to ruin the whole experience by stubbornly refusing to play along with the affectations of coffee house culture.

He ordered himself a "latty".As in, rhymes with fatty. As in "we'll have none of that foreign muck here love, and give me a hobnob while you"re at it".

"Regulosio, Mediosa or Grande?" chirruped the lady under the baseball cap. Dad stared at her suspiciously, ignoring the daughter next to him as she melted into a puddle of humiliation on the shiny wood floor.

"Normal", he replied.

Fast forward seven years or so (because I've finished my large

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Americano and the frappe-wielding fraternity are starting to eye up my squashy armchair), it's a different story.

Study leave has driven me out of my bedroom, where frankly, the charms of eBay are always going to win over the delights of medieval religious confessionals, and into the warm, leathery arms of the city's coffee shops.

I've started spending at least three blissfully caffeinated hours a day studying in Caff Nero.

I like to think of it as the library, but minus the books and general air of impending doom.

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It may even be my favourite thing about revision (though when the other forerunners for the title are "colour coding my flashcards" and "being glad I'm only doing English and thus my results will have no great bearing on the world anyway", it's not what one would term aclose call).

It's also just dawned on me that if I'd kept my espresso intake this high all year, I may have been awake for a few more lectures'¦ so that's everything annoying about being a London student '“ boiled down, topped up with cream and drunk out of a really big cup.

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