You can't deny the French this: they have a sense of ritual when it comes to coffee and tea. Even dingy bars, still reeking of their smoking years, will offer a proper pot of hot water complete with cup and saucer and sugar cubes. So this doesn't always happen, and sometimes you might just get lipton yellow instead of a choice of teas or infusions. Compare this to the unromantic steps needed to have tea stateside: you pick out your tazo tea from the dispenser near the cash register, the cashier hands you a paper cup of hot water, and then you grab your sugar and plastic striped stirrer from the dispensers by the trash. Where's the fun in that?