Never thought it would happen to me but I’ve started regularly drinking green tea. It started off a while back at the Kaiten-Zushi (conveyor-belt sushi) as something to quench my thirst and has developed from there into buying teabags and drinking it on the cold winters nights. The climate is not too different from the UK but Japanese homes don’t have insulated walls and central heating so a hot cup of green tea certainly helps.

Although I’m from a country where the stereotypical image is of people sitting around having a cuppa and complaining about the weather or whatever I don’t drink normal tea and I have never even tried coffee which is something that amazes my students. I haven’t had tea since I was about four but I stopped drinking it then as my sisters didn’t drink it all and I guess I wanted to copy them which of course sounds very strange now.