The paper shows that it is not just the habit of drinking coffee and tea that has changed over the centuries, but also the lexicon of the related semantic circle. Polish preserves the basic vocabulary pertaining to the culture of coffee and tea drinking; some units have undergone a semantic metamorphosis and remained in the language, others did not withstand the test of time and faded into oblivion. It should be emphasized that the analysed lexical layer is constantly evolving, as is proven by new names for our stimulants, such as lura ‘weak tea’, słomka ‘weak tea’, pistoletówka ‘black coffee’, szatan ‘strong black coffee’ etc.