You can get coffee almost anywhere. There are a few places where it still hasn’t reached, and many where it is a luxury. Tea’s fine and it is available even more places than coffee. But you can’t bank on it: I have been to one hotel, at the top of Mount Tai that had neither. I really need my morning pick-me-up. But now-a-days I also need to switch to caffeine free beverages around noon.

Ah, youth

When I was young I could drink a small pot of coffee and fall asleep. I tended to wake up earlier than I would have otherwise but it didn’t cause me to stay awake. That is not true anymore.

Maturity-how the mighty are fallen

Now I really have to watch it. If I drink a cup of strong coffee to stay awake through something after about noon even jet lag can’t overcome it. I have found that outside of the USA coffee tends to be very strong, espresso more often than not, and decaffeinated isn’t available generally even if you can say it (you can usually get it at Starbucks, but I try to avoid that and visit local places).

Bring it with you

Hydration is very important and local water often needs to be boiled and sometimes tastes odd. For that reason I carry a wide variety of decaffeinated beverages in the form of teabags (for travel the ones that come in foil packages are less accident prone) and single serving packages of coffee and a spoon.

They don’t weigh much and even those who travel light can manage a few tea bags. As I mentioned in my A post, Aroma Therapy-Well Kind of, you can select varieties of tea and coffee that smell good to you for added benefit.

Note:

I don’t like sweet or milky drinks much so I haven’t a strategy for them, except to say, decaf or not, make darned sure that milk is heated hot enough. I’ve had a few lattes that caused distress, enough so that I now always order Americanos instead (except at Starbucks, they really do seem to have good quality control and clean “western-style” toilets! but, as I mentioned I like to go local if I can).