One of us here on Dream Deferred likes Coke. A lot. And it ain’t me! Here’s what happens if you boil up a portion of Martin’s favourite potion. It’s worth a watch.

Now Martin loves his Coca Cola, stacking up the red cans like there’s no tomorrow. So it’s probably not surprising that the slogan at the end of the video, “This is what you drink – think about it!” was a bit lost on him.

He reckons the end product looks quite nice.

Sometimes I’m tempted to tease Martin a bit about his Coke habit. I was going to remind him about the $6.5bn pre-tax profits the Coca Cola Company made in the three months to 28 March this year alone – a princely sum that is actually down slightly on the profits for the same period last year.

Or maybe mention the phenomenon of Cocacolonisation – the huge globalised spread of US goods and culture, steamrolling everything in its path under its big red tin rollers, drowning local flavours in a fizzy brown tide.

Maybe I should have pointed out the Coca Cola workers in Thessaloniki, Greece, and Madrid in the Spanish state, who are striking to save their jobs…

But by this time I was laughing so hard at Martin’s daft addiction that I nearly spilled my thirteenth cup of tea of the day.

Don’t spill my tea! I must have my tea!

Yes, sadly I do know that if you Google tea and slavery, tea and imperialism or in fact anything much to do with tea and capitalism, you will also find some grim results.

Tea is just an older commodity than Coke – pushed out onto the mass market by those who stood to make a profit, reeling us in with a little addictive tang, hooking us on the idea that our favourite can or cuppa makes the day go better. There’s no clean drink under capitalism.

They don’t all do that when you boil them though.