Dialogue: Coffee the hit that hooked the smart set

I gave up coffee more than 10 years ago. I was feeling pressure to give up at least one vice and coffee seemed the most disposable - besides, the white of my eyes seemed to be turning a cacky yellow.

It was fairly easy back then, despite the dull, thumping, withdrawal headache which occurred minutes after the cold turkey began, because "café society" was a phenomenon yet to occur.

Coffee was white, black, powdered or granulated, occasionally percolated but never plunged. At coffee lounges we drank filtered coffee, which often resembled liquid tar, but as it was bottomless it was excellent value for money.

Drying out must be harder now, since coffee has become the drink de rigueur, with one's individual coffee selection worn as a badge. Coffee fans make a great to-do when specifying their signature poison - flat, long, short, decaf, with skim, Trim, soy etc. And the café connoisseur patter ("I hate that place but the coffee is good") makes great small talk.

More ritualistic than habitual, there's more to having a coffee than just drinking the stuff. Coffee has created the new café society and driven the behaviour that goes with it. It's even changed what we eat - muffins being the new scone, paninis the new sandwich and, of course, bagels the new toast.

It's today's most socially acceptable addiction. You get hooked on the hit so it feels a bit dangerous but it carries a lower health risk than every other vice, including sex. It has a culture conducive to social interaction yet can be an individual event as well. While we can't risk drinking alone at a pub without looking as if we have a problem, or dine solo in a restaurant in case others think we've been stood up, the café society allows us to go it alone and not appear like Nellie No Friends.

The café society also encourages important family bonding time and we have a new generation of café-literate kids who are confident in ordering their own fluffy-hold-the-marshmallows at 4 years.

"Meeting for a coffee" is now shorthand for a low-obligation get-together that can be arranged or cancelled at a moment's notice. It's what e-mail is to snail mail and has allowed us to catch up with more people in short sharp bursts. Meeting clients and colleagues for coffee is not only enjoyable but also responsible - it's quick, cheap and no one makes a fool of themselves if they overindulge.

In the 80s, we did more full-scale lunching and drinking alcohol at lunchtime was still acceptable.

I still "meet for coffee" despite being a tea drinker. Riding on the coat tails of coffee, tea has also undergone a revival but tea culture isn't half as exciting as that of coffee. While coffee has rich, dark and exotic connotations, tea still reeks of fluffy slippers, doilies and Coro St.

Tea's just not sexy. And it's difficult to make a statement by demanding Earl Gray or English Breakfast.

Of course, there is plenty of choice in herbals but most people have cupboards stashed full of those colourful, over-designed herbal teabag boxes which seem to last 10 years due to a lack of drinker interest. "Pineapple and Papaya" sounds good at the supermarket but in the cold light of day it's just silly. And anyway as a social badge herbal teas can't yet shake the image of mung-bean-eating Jesus-sandal-wearers.

A wealthy Remuera housewife friend of mine fesses up to sipping away at $30 of housekeeping money every week. I hear of another woman who gave up breastfeeding because it was so much easier than kicking the coffee habit, and too many people confess to not being able to function without the morning caffeine hit. And we laugh off their addiction to the most widespread social drug of our times.

It's all a bit reminiscent of the 50s and 60s, when smoking had a similar social cachet. Mums, dads, politicians, film stars and various other role models merrily puffed away on television, on advertisements and in front of the kids, unaware of the health and social issues that loomed.

Coffee - enjoy it while it lasts. It'll probably be illegal in 50 years.