tea or coffee for beginners!

does anyone have any tea or coffee ideas for beginners?  i love hot drinks (steamed skim milk with sugar free vanilla syrup, sugar free hot chocolate) and would like to try tea or coffee.  i am looking for ideas on how to start trying or how people like their coffee and tea!

Original Post by politica:

If you really want to try coffee, you need to make a small initial investment. Get a French Press- you can usually find a good one between $15 and $30. Then, get some quality coffee. Forget about Folger's and Maxwell House, its over-produced and tastes like dirt. Look to see if you have a local roaster. For starters, go for a medium blend.

This.

French press coffee with non-fat sweetened condensed milk=yum!

I also drink locally roasted coffee and use CoffeeMate in mine w/o any additional sweetner if I use my drip coffee maker.

Celestial Seasonings makes a honey vanilla chai tea that is excellent with some sugar and milk.

I make my coffee double strength and then add 3 packets of splenda to one cup. One cup is all I need, because it's strong. About 240mg caffeine.

I am a complete tea addict!
I just about always have it with a little bit of honey, no sugar and absolutely no artificial crap [I find it detracts from the taste of the tea].
Green tea is lovely with lemon and honey
Herbal tea usually doesn't need any sweetener
and regular black tea is nice with honey too.
Don't add milk to green tea or herbal teas [ie. peppermint + milk = bleh!]

and loose-leaf teas are generally a lot nicer. You'll have to get a tea infuser, but for a little extra effort, you get a much better result.
:D

I LOVE Italian coffee, strong dark delicious mmmm! Havent tried any of the syrups with my coffee just like it as it is. Although I love Starbucks and have in the past enjoyed vanilla powder mmm and cinnamon too on top, ahh! I also love Costa coffee as its stronger.  When Im at home I love a good cafatiere with stong gorgeous coffee but I also love a good instant, as mentioned above, something like Nescafe Cap Colombie and I love that decaff, with a mint tea bag in at night YUM!