The Look goes on...

[Mr Knightley]

A proper overcoat in a decent size.

You may need gloves, scarf and headgear soon though.

The coffee thing I don’t understand. I am a tea drinker anyway. I see reports of people queueing outside coffee shops and it amazes me. I also used to be puzzled seeing people in coffee shops after the working day had ended. I thought coffee shops were just for killing time between appointments.

The last time I was able to get to London for an event was mid-March last year. Mrs K was not very keen on my going. I said I would walk from Liverpool Street to Russell Square (it was a glorious spring morning) and I did. The thing I remember most about that ‘last day of freedom’ was a lovely espresso macchiato and pastry in Caffè Nero in Southampton Row just before I got to my destination.

Is coffee or tea more suited to The Look ?

 

[Kingstonian]

The last time I was able to get to London for an event was mid-March last year. Mrs K was not very keen on my going. I said I would walk from Liverpool Street to Russell Square (it was a glorious spring morning) and I did. The thing I remember most about that ‘last day of freedom’ was a lovely espresso macchiato and pastry in Caffè Nero in Southampton Row just before I got to my destination.

Is coffee or tea more suited to The Look ?

Southampton Row ?

That is mostly notable for the menswear shop on the corner with Bloomsbury way. For decades it has had a sign in the window ‘Everything must go’. They are not actually closing down though!

It stocks traditional stuff - tweed, Masonic suits etc. Not high end. I went in once looking for a Harris tweed jacket they had in the window and the lady behind the counter said they did not have it in my size but they had some nice linen jackets! Old school Jewish salesmanship.

I don’t really think about tea in terms of the Look. I suppose coffee may have more poseur appeal. I used to like old school Formica caffs before they disappeared, but I drank tea in them. New Piccadilly was a great one.

Classic Cafes | London's vintage Formica caffs!

Vintage London Formica cafes of the 1950s and 1960s reviewed, researched and reappraised.

www.classiccafes.co.uk

 

[covskin]

Is coffee or tea more suited to The Look

Both, but not Earl Grey

 

[Luigi_M]

Is coffee or tea more suited to The Look

If you mind an outsider's opinion, I'd say coffee (even if I'm more a tea guy).
As with most things regarding youth and youngs, it's a matter of time. There's more ease in managing time with coffee: you have time, you sip it; you are in a hurry, you gulp it down and rush outta door.
Tea, instead, has its own rules and times: to whom you have to obey.
As a young 'un I was insufferent of any limitation, hence I leaned towards coffee. Now - well ... my mind has changed along with age.
(anyway, if tea has to be, it must be dark as sin and strong as a punch - milk, no sugar : so I agree with @covskin , no Earl Grey for me)

 

[Kingstonian]

When larger employers provided excellent staff restaurants I would not have given too much though to regular food and drink outside. That was for people in small enterprises with no catering on site.

Then outsourcing kicked in and the great staff restaurants went downhill and got pricey.

That is really when I started lunch away from work. So many great little caffs disappeared in a short space of time. Now most stuff is boring chain eateries.

I ate in most of the great caffs. It was quite an operation to get out to the Edgware Road, or Bethnal Green, or up to The Angel and back without taking too much time.

New Piccadilly was open in the evenings as well. He used to have the radio turned on to The Archers. I like the theme music but don’t follow it. It was nicely familiar though. He had an historic pink coffee machine but I was on tea anyway.. Pellicci is still going but most of the others are closed. River Cafe by Putney Bridge is still good for tea and a bacon sandwich.

Classic Cafes | Caff Top Ten

Vintage London Formica cafes of the 1950s and 1960s reviewed, researched and reappraised.

www.classiccafes.co.uk

 

[Yorky]

Both, but not Earl Grey

I love Earl Grey more than Yorkshire tea!

 

[Swampster]

If you mind an outsider's opinion, I'd say coffee (even if I'm more a tea guy).
As with most things regarding youth and youngs, it's a matter of time. There's more ease in managing time with coffee: you have time, you sip it; you are in a hurry, you gulp it down and rush outta door.
Tea, instead, has its own rules and times: to whom you have to obey.
As a young 'un I was insufferent of any limitation, hence I leaned towards coffee. Now - well ... my mind has changed along with age.
(anyway, if tea has to be, it must be dark as sin and strong as a punch - milk, no sugar : so I agree with @covskin , no Earl Grey for me)

I think tea should be at least NATO standard (milk, two sugars). I leave it to brew for longer than I used to.
When I'm in France or Italy, I think the blends go better without milk but I still have sugar.
When I'm in coffee bars, I usually have chocolate now - they seem to provide tea bags which are incapable of giving any taste of tea.

Coffee goes with the late 50s/early 60s vibe a bit more than tea, with overtones of both US and French/Italian influence which started off much of the look. I just don't like coffee.

 

[Thin White Duke]

I don’t drink tea or coffee and any connection to the look has to be tenuous surely, aside from the London coffee bars where original Mods hung out back on the day, either due to being too young for the pubs and/or the ridiculous licensing rules they had back then. Even in my own youth last orders was 10.30.

I don’t mind people drinking whatever they like but find the ridiculous obsessiveness some people have laughable and boring in equal measure. In the same way that a bunch of so called wine experts were blindfolded and found the best tasting wines were around $10-$20 a bottle,I would defy those who get into pointless arguments as to whether milk should go in the cup before or after the tea to be able to tell the difference if they were blindfolded.

I’m only half joking when I say tea was the downfall of the British Empire. The obsession that so many industries and tradesmen thought that it was their divine right to stop for tea breaks morning and afternoon was hugely myopic when other countries especially in the Far East were kicking our arses industrially.

There’s even a scene in Bravo Two Zero wherein a squad of SAS lads are on the run from the Iraqi army in hot pursuit during the first gulf war but they still have to stop to ‘make a brew’!! I’d be saying “bollocks to the tea lads let’s get the hell outta here!”

As for coffee and those who proudly state that they cannot function without three cups in a morning - how weak is that? I worked with a lass who had to have Starbucks every morning on the way to work. This made her later and later till she eventually got fired. Either too weak to defeat her addiction or too stupid to know how to get out of bed earlier!

 

[Luigi_M]

When it comes to milk ... I'm aware there's a harsh debate between MiF (milk in first) and MiL (milk in last), but frankly cannot grasp the ultimate arguments for both. I like to brew my tea at home and pour tea in the cup and then add milk, but just because I find easier to dose the right amount of milk this way than the other round.
I guess we all can agree on a crasis and state that Milf is a great concept, though.

 

[Yorky]

I don’t drink tea or coffee and any connection to the look has to be tenuous surely, aside from the London coffee bars where original Mods hung out back on the day, either due to being too young for the pubs and/or the ridiculous licensing rules they had back then. Even in my own youth last orders was 10.30.

I don’t mind people drinking whatever they like but find the ridiculous obsessiveness some people have laughable and boring in equal measure. In the same way that a bunch of so called wine experts were blindfolded and found the best tasting wines were around $10-$20 a bottle,I would defy those who get into pointless arguments as to whether milk should go in the cup before or after the tea to be able to tell the difference if they were blindfolded.

I’m only half joking when I say tea was the downfall of the British Empire. The obsession that so many industries and tradesmen thought that it was their divine right to stop for tea breaks morning and afternoon was hugely myopic when other countries especially in the Far East were kicking our arses industrially.

There’s even a scene in Bravo Two Zero wherein a squad of SAS lads are on the run from the Iraqi army in hot pursuit during the first gulf war but they still have to stop to ‘make a brew’!! I’d be saying “bollocks to the tea lads let’s get the hell outta here!”

As for coffee and those who proudly state that they cannot function without three cups in a morning - how weak is that? I worked with a lass who had to have Starbucks every morning on the way to work. This made her later and later till she eventually got fired. Either too weak to defeat her addiction or too stupid to know how to get out of bed earlier!

We lost America because of tea as well!

 

[cocostella]

I’d propose a pint completes “the look.”

 

[Botolph]

I drank tea as a kid due to the influence of my aunt from Lancashire who watched me a lot. Milk and sugar and cream cheese on toast.
Never started drinking coffee until I was 21 after a girlfriend dumped me. That night I pulled an all-nighter at a diner. Bottomless cup of coffee for a buck fifty and some HP Lovecraft put me through the night. Back then I didn’t know better and I had cream and honey in the black water that vaguely had a coffee smell.
I moved to Boston a hear later and iced coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts was all the rage as I worked with 4 guys who were in AA and all they did was rip butts and quaff “icers” all day. The disgusting combo I started with was a “”ladge ice extra-extra”(extra cream, extra sugar). We’re talking WHITE with cream and an inch of sugar granules on the bottom. Truly disgusting.
Soon after I settled on a drop of milk and one packet of Splenda in either hot or iced coffee. Gave up the Splenda soon thereafter.
A few years ago I got really into espresso and ended up drinking way too much of it and coffee, and it ended up effecting my sleep.
So I gave up coffee altogether. Took me about a day to get over it— no horror stories of migraines, etc. just two or three hours of lethargy and a little tired for a day, then no coffee for a year. Simples.
Started back on coffee again, maybe two cups a day. Due to an upper esophageal problem, I had to eliminate dairy from my diet. Preemptively, I stopped using milk in my coffee and forced myself to drink it black, just to get used to it before the diet change.
Since then it’s back to normal and I still drink my coffee black— and prefer it.
Tea, which I only really drink at home, gets this toasted almond/coconut milk in it. Yorkshire Gold. Tea first, milk next, Hobnob third ?.
When I was a milk-in-coffee guy, I definitely did milk first. Makes a subtle difference. Wife and I have done blind taste tests actually ?

As far as having anything to do with the look, I definitely don’t understand what the connection is except that people like drinking beverages and skinheads and mods are people. Therefore skinheads and mods like a coffeeAs far as having anything to do with the look, I definitely don’t understand what the connection is except that people like drinking beverages and skinheads and mods are people. Therefore some skinheads and mods like a coffee from time to time.
Screw Starbucks and pretty much screwed Dunkin’ Donuts now that they’ve been bought out by a huge company. We have plenty of small shops that serve excellent coffee around me so there’s no dearth of choices. We have a huge queue of zombies around the building waiting to get into Starbucks every day here as well. I just don’t get it —- and I don’t really like Starbucks anyway. I think the coffee taste like crap.
Anyways, the barista goes on....

p.s. pardon the book ☝?

 

[Thin White Duke]

So errrr - how many coffees a day are you on now??

 

[Yorky]

I drank tea as a kid due to the influence of my aunt from Lancashire who watched me a lot. Milk and sugar and cream cheese on toast.
Never started drinking coffee until I was 21 after a girlfriend dumped me. That night I pulled an all-nighter at a diner. Bottomless cup of coffee for a buck fifty and some HP Lovecraft put me through the night. Back then I didn’t know better and I had cream and honey in the black water that vaguely had a coffee smell.
I moved to Boston a hear later and iced coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts was all the rage as I worked with 4 guys who were in AA and all they did was rip butts and quaff “icers” all day. The disgusting combo I started with was a “”ladge ice extra-extra”(extra cream, extra sugar). We’re talking WHITE with cream and an inch of sugar granules on the bottom. Truly disgusting.
Soon after I settled on a drop of milk and one packet of Splenda in either hot or iced coffee. Gave up the Splenda soon thereafter.
A few years ago I got really into espresso and ended up drinking way too much of it and coffee, and it ended up effecting my sleep.
So I gave up coffee altogether. Took me about a day to get over it— no horror stories of migraines, etc. just two or three hours of lethargy and a little tired for a day, then no coffee for a year. Simples.
Started back on coffee again, maybe two cups a day. Due to an upper esophageal problem, I had to eliminate dairy from my diet. Preemptively, I stopped using milk in my coffee and forced myself to drink it black, just to get used to it before the diet change.
Since then it’s back to normal and I still drink my coffee black— and prefer it.
Tea, which I only really drink at home, gets this toasted almond/coconut milk in it. Yorkshire Gold. Tea first, milk next, Hobnob third ?.
When I was a milk-in-coffee guy, I definitely did milk first. Makes a subtle difference. Wife and I have done blind taste tests actually ?

As far as having anything to do with the look, I definitely don’t understand what the connection is except that people like drinking beverages and skinheads and mods are people. Therefore skinheads and mods like a coffeeAs far as having anything to do with the look, I definitely don’t understand what the connection is except that people like drinking beverages and skinheads and mods are people. Therefore some skinheads and mods like a coffee from time to time.
Screw Starbucks and pretty much screwed Dunkin’ Donuts now that they’ve been bought out by a huge company. We have plenty of small shops that serve excellent coffee around me so there’s no dearth of choices. We have a huge queue of zombies around the building waiting to get into Starbucks every day here as well. I just don’t get it —- and I don’t really like Starbucks anyway. I think the coffee taste like crap.
Anyways, the barista goes on....

p.s. pardon the book ☝?

Do you dunk your hob nobs?, I'm a pro dunker but only in tea,
McVities chocolate digestives or Rich Tea fingers stacked 10 at a time.

 

[Yorky]

A diversion from our beverage thread, got some Uniqlo regular fit Japanese selvedge denim jeans this week. I've normally got 34" waist in Levis, so went for the same, no choice in the leg, they were way too big on the waist and leg even with my usual 1" double turn ups. So they went in the washer for 2 hours at 60 deg's. They shrank perfectly, waist is spot on and legs also with my 1" turn ups, no fading either.
Also took a punt on a couple of their Uniqlo U range of plain white Tee's, for wearing under BD's. They are great a really thick cotton and brilliant fit with a spot on kneckline.
Fred Perry has a good sale on at the moment, just ordered this jacket £48 from £160, purely because it's got wadding and quilted, it's far too cold here at the moment, went for a walk at our local National Trust place today and it was -3 deg's.