Put the kettle on because this week I want you to think about tea. When I was growing up, we only had one kind in our house: Typhoo.

Or, as Mrs Hooper down the road used to mistakenly call it, to the great amusement of our mum, throughout her entire adult life, “Typhoid Tea”.

Mrs Hooper also once informed us that, because of roadworks, the council had put barristers all across the street. But that’s another story.

Other brands than Typhoo were also available, of course. Auntie Madge had PG Tips, and Auntie Jean had Co-op 99. She still does, in fact, and will no doubt still be drinking it on her 99th birthday.

Nobody of that generation thought to try an alternative brand, because in those days asking mums and aunties to swap brands was like asking them to take up a new religion. Our mum would have turned Buddhist before switching to Tetley.

But this isn’t about brands. The observation I am getting to here is: it didn’t occur to them to try another type of tea, either.

I’ve been thinking about this lately because one of the Christmas presents I got last year was a nice selection of different teas in a beautifully designed box.

There are nine of them – not different brands, but rather different types of tea, such as breakfast, Spice Imperial (now often called Chai), Russian Caravan and Assam.

They cover an amazing range, from the light flavours of green tea and the floral Earl Grey (my favourite) to lapsang souchong, which smells like our car did when the clutch was burning out, but has a taste that can be acquired.

All of these types of tea have been available for generations, but what’s different about us now is we now seek out and enjoy diversity, while our mums and aunties seemed to fear it.

I love tea because it’s refreshing or warming, depending on the weather, and reminds me of home, where the kettle was always on.

But even more of a pleasure than tea itself is its variety.

So whenever I’m out and somebody offers me a drink, I always answer that I never say no to a cup of tea, and if I am offered a choice of types, I’ll probably outstay my welcome.

Another good thing about drinking tea – even for a person like me who isn’t very nationalistic – is it’s part of our national identity, while coffee, on the other hand, is totally international, belonging to everybody and nobody, not unlike like McDonald’s.

Coffee, though, is an even better example of the variety of modern life than tea.

It used to mean only one thing, and came in a jar, and because brand loyalty was king with coffee too, nothing but Nescafe ever darkened our mum’s larder.

More to the point – there were only two ways of making it back then: black or white.

Now we’ve come up with more ways of making a cup of coffee than there are pebbles on the beach, so anybody who works in a café these days probably has to have a degree in coffeeology before they will let them loose, while people like me, who are too busy enjoying tea to drink coffee, are baffled by all the choices.

Tea and coffee are just two everyday examples of the rich tapestry of life in the 21st century, so while we can find plenty to moan about, we should also stop to think about how interesting our lives can be, and drink to how lucky we are. White with one sugar, please.