A cuppa...

Every morning the coffee and tea man, umbrella overhead, motors down our soi, offering a variety of coffees and teas from his steaming pots. But this being the streets of suburban Bangkok you can forget about lattes, cappuccino and decaf.

Instead I get a glass of hot instant coffee carefully ladled from the vat which is boiling in the middle of his cart.

To this he mixes, and stirs in vigorously, a decent dollop of condensed milk before adding a heaped tablespoon of sugar creamer. Then it is all poured into a plastic bag. He then swirls this bag around in the air- miraculously avoiding splattering me- before he ties an 'impossible to untie' rubber band round the top. Very sweet, very delicious.

Takeaway coffee vacuum-sealed for my pleasure.

For tea drinkers he also does a mean lemon infused tea; this drink is actually made using limes but for some reason the Thai always calls limes, lemons.