Why do we say 'tomar' for the drinks?

Question

Hi. Could you please explain why we say tomar un café instead of beber?

Answer 1

Es hora de tomar mis medicamentos. It's time to take my medicine.

Es hora de tomar un descanso. It's time to take a rest.

Es hora de tomar un refresco. It's time to take a drink.

You don't actually "take" anything here. Before I actually started speaking with real natives I used to say "beber" instead of "tomar", but that isn't how they usually say it. They say "tomar", and that's just how it is. We have many different odd ways of saying things in English too, but this one makes sense to me. I took my pills, I took a rest, then I took a coffee.You want a headscratcher? Try this on:

Es hora de tomar una decision. It's time to take a decision. You don't make a decision in Spanish, you take a decision. How weird is that? You just have to know how it is said.

Answer 2

In english we would usually say 'Are you going to have a coffee' wouldn't we - not 'Are you going to drink a coffee'?

We would mostly use the verb 'drink' as an instruction, or a to describe what we are doing at that moment. ie 'Drink your coffee it's getting cold',and 'I'm drinking coffee'.

My guess is that 'tomar' is equivalent to 'have' when asking or ordering.