Of soy and Starbucks

I'm hitting the coffee pretty hard these days. Sometimes I spend my lunch break hiding in a cafe because it's far, far away from the small-talk hell that is my staff kitchen; other times I'm there because I legitimately need some caffeine if I am going to summon the energy to write passive aggressive emails to the office about the dirty dishes in said kitchen. It's pretty hard to avoid coffee shops in this neighbourhood, even if you wanted to. It's a mecca on South Granville, really: a Korean-owned Parisian-style cafe; Dose, a shop that combines raspberry puree with espresso for reasons beyond my comprehension; Cafe Crepe gives out tiny, brimming cups for free to the shoppers strolling by. But among this thriving cafe culture, Starbucks, that corporate-yuppie-behemoth, beacon of branding, enemy of "the little guy", has somehow become my go-to, despite the well-thumbed copy of No Logo on my bookshelf. In my defense: I did it all for the soy.