"Sure. Terrific. Brilliant. Good plan. In fact, super plan. It's sunny today isn't it, boy, is it me or is it just hot in here or what? Have you done something with your hair?"

All I had said to my sweaty friend whose pupils had shrunk to the size of pinheads was that I was thirsty and wouldn't mind a drink. Before I could reply he continued.

"Actually that reminds me of a giant tortoise I saw at a zoo once that they had to keep moist all of the time with giant hoses. What a thirsty bugger, eh? Greedy sod. You have ever eaten turtle?"

Then it dawned on me - he'd had his first coffee for the day only moments ago. That wily grin, that stammered delivery, that cold sweat.

It's the feeling that constitutes the happiest moment of many an office worker's day. The caffeine buzz when the world is an oyster ready to be shucked and served with lemon, when even the most mundane task can be tackled with a sense of purpose and even optimism.

It's also a feeling that happens once a day and no matter how many more cups of Joe you hurl down your throat, that initial bliss can never be replicated. Every attempt to do so just heightens the jittery physical effects, but the sense of wonderment, like you were seeing all creation through the eyes of Willy Wonka, is replaced by anxiety. Still, that doesn't stop many of my colleagues from seeking a third or eighth daily dose of brown liquid batteries.

According to one website, the discovery of coffee's ants-in-the-pants goodness was made by an Ethiopian pastoralist who noticed that his sheep became unusually perky after they munched on a reddish berry-looking bean.

A while later, Christians reportedly had their knickers in a knot about the stuff (coffee imbibers were suspiciously cheery and thus had to be devil-worshippers). So Pope Vincent III sipped on a brew and, in a rare show of Vatican humor, baptized coffee, thus giving his flock one less thing to feel guilty about.

Elsewhere, in an early shot in the arm for women's lib, Turkish law decreed in the late 17th century that failing to provide a daily serve of coffee was grounds for a wife to divorce her husband.

I budget for at least one cup of decent coffee per day. And this comes from someone whose concept of fiscal responsibility is at best, infantile. I would have earnestly answered "yes" as a child when my mother would repeatedly ask: "do you think money grows on trees".

And coffee isn't cheap in China, not the good stuff, but just for that momentary glance through rose-colored glasses I would happily dance naked on sidewalks for the amusement and loose change of passers-by.

Yet there is that comedown, the moment when the buzz wares off, you realize what seemed like a higher form of communication is just another boring conversation.

This brings me back to the anecdote at the beginning of the story.

"So you were saying something about tortoises?" I asked my friend.

"Yeah whatever dude, can't stand 'em. Anyway, you wanna get a beer?"

Which brings us to stage two in the pursuit of happiness.

(China Daily 09/25/2007 page20)