"Libations"
Hers was tea. She frowned upon teabags, using instead loose-leaf in the same old, chipped teapot she'd brought with her, wrapped in newspaper, when she'd first come to Central – there were more efficient ways to make tea, yes, but there was comfort in tradition. She drank the entire pot without any fripperies, without lemon or anything of the sort, enjoying instead the fragrant honesty of it.
His was coffee. He liked to brew it thick and heavy, bitter to the point where it made him shudder and set his jaw when he drank that first experimental sip. After that one drink he would stir in sugar and straight cream, enough that Riza would sigh and caution him that he wasn't going to be nearly so popular with the ladies when he couldn't even fit into the regulation uniform. He'd smile at her and say he had a fast metabolism, and when she countered that when he was old, it wasn't going to be nearly so fast, he laughed and told her that at that point it wouldn't matter. What use, he'd ask, somehow making his question sound sweet, would he have for attracting women when he'd probably either be happily married or dead?
Maybe it was sweet because of the way he fussed about with her old teapot, trying to learn how to make her drink even as she tried her hand with the coffee-pot.