“Fancy a coffee?”

Possibly the most innocent lie in the English language.

Because the actual coffee may be the least important part.

Sometimes you need somewhere for a quick catch-up. Sometimes you've got an hour to kill in town.

Sometimes you want to open the laptop without sitting at the kitchen table again.

And sometimes you want cake.

No judgement here.

Peterborough has plenty of places that will sell you caffeine.

The more useful question is what sort of coffee stop do you actually want?

Here are three very different answers.

Bewiched — when you actually want to stay

Bewiched is probably the easiest of the three to understand.

You want coffee. You want somewhere comfortable. You might be meeting somebody.

You may be there longer than originally claimed.

It has become a familiar local name rather than another interchangeable coffee chain, with Peterborough among the places where the business has established itself.

That's important because familiarity is part of what people want from a regular coffee place.

You know the drill.

Coffee first.

Conversation starts.

Forty-five minutes later neither of you has shown the slightest sign of leaving.

Best for: the proper catch-up that was introduced as “just a quick coffee.”

Nata & Papa — when coffee isn't really the point

Then there are occasions when a drink needs something beside it.

This is where Nata & Papa becomes dangerous.

Portuguese pastries have a habit of making a plain cup of coffee look terribly lonely.

The obvious temptation is the pastel de nata that little combination of crisp pastry and custard that somehow manages to feel light right up until you've ordered another one.

This isn't where we'd go determined to demonstrate extraordinary self-control.

Best for: coffee accompanied by something you absolutely hadn't intended to eat five minutes earlier.

The Green Backyard — when you'd rather escape the coffee-shop bit altogether

And then there's The Green Backyard.

This is the odd one out, which is exactly why it belongs here.

It's a community growing project rather than a conventional city-centre café experience: green space, plants, community activity and a completely different atmosphere from sitting behind a shop window watching traffic.

That's the attraction.

Sometimes “fancy a coffee?” really means:

“Can we go somewhere and get away from everything for a bit?”

A community garden changes the conversation before anybody has even taken a sip.

Check what's happening and current opening arrangements before making a special journey, because this isn't a conventional all-day café operation.

Best for: the day when another hour inside four walls sounds unbearable.

So where are we going?

That's the problem with the original question.

“Fancy a coffee?” tells us almost nothing.

Give us the circumstances and the answer changes.

An hour-long gossip? Bewiched.

Coffee plus pastry temptation? Nata & Papa.

Some greenery and a different pace? The Green Backyard.

And if you've got a Peterborough coffee spot where they already know what you're ordering before you've sat down, we want to hear about that one too.Comment below.