"I'm French but I don't drink coffee," declares Paris-born photographer Cedric Riveau, as he sips top-grade tea at a French tea salon in Ginza.

Expressing surprise that he didn't opt for a tiny shot of espresso, like other Frenchmen I've known, I'm gently taken to task for lazy stereotyping — which turns out to be one of Riveau's pet peeves.

"I hate generalities and all the cliches," he says. "And the cliches are precisely what I break down through my work."