A cup of tea is often described as "the cup that cheers".

Well pardon me for not joining in, because for as long as I've been alive I have loathed bloody tea - and it's not as though I haven't given it a chance... umpteen chances, and I still think tea is the most over-rated, dull, uninteresting beverage full stop. It is nonetheless the most imbibed prepared fluid on planet earth, with at least one billion cups of the stuff drunk every day, second only to water in popularity... or necessity.

My mother used to drink buckets of the stuff - and she lived to be nearly 100. So I'm not denying it's life sustaining... or in Mum's case... preserving properties, I simply don't like it. Oh I've tried... over the years I have sampled black, green and jasmine teas; also teas flavoured with mint, lemon and something called orange pekoe, which incidentally was truly disgusting. And not one of them impressed me as anything more than cloudy warm water.

As a 10-year-old brat on holiday in the UK, my Aunty Grace (yes the one my father called the religious nutter) dragged me into a café in a small rural town which called itself Yvonne's Tea Rooms. It turned out to be just one rather cramped salon containing about 12 tables, some of which were occupied by mostly elderly ladies drinking, yes you've guessed it, tea. When the fat, middle-aged waitress, who also happened to be the proprietor, approached our table she anticipated auntie's order with: "Two teas is it?" Aunty Grace confirmed but I chipped in with: "No thanks, I'd prefer coffee." The waitress/proprietor shot back with: "I don't do coffee love... I'll make you a nice cup of tea."

Then, while aunty squirmed I had another go: "No thank you, if you don't do coffee I'll have a glass of water. I don't like tea." I'll never forget the woman's reaction. Her eyes widened and she spat out the words: "What you mean you don't like tea? Everybody likes tea." Er no, wrong, everybody does not like tea: "If you don't serve water I'll just sit here and wait while my aunt drinks her tea."

On one occasion, I would have been about 12 or so, I was actually forced to drink the bloody stuff by my parents. What happened was this: we were visiting my father's aunt who lived in the Cotswolds in the UK. She lived with a lady companion in a house that looked almost exactly like the one in Alfred Hitchcock's movie, Psycho. It sat alone on top of a hill and, at least to a 12-year-old, looked forbidding and unwelcoming. This initial impression was confirmed once we'd been admitted by the middle-aged companion. She showed my parents, my brother and I into a large sitting room, rendered almost pitch-black dark by the fact that all the curtains were drawn shut.

Eventually... Aunty Doris made her grand entrance, a tall, bulky unsmiling old woman, dressed entirely in black. She immediately told her companion to serve tea, which arrived on a silver tray soon after. After serving the adults their tea the companion then placed a cup of the over-sweetened stuff in front of me. I was about to open my mouth to say, "No thanks", when my mother hissed at me: "Drink it!" So I poured it into the nearest potted plant... of which there were many.

So if I am ever invited to your house for refreshments at around four thirty in the afternoon, offer me anything you like... except bloody tea!