Reading tea leaves is a traditional art that is supposed to tell your fortune – but I bet you didn’t know that where you choose to drink lattes can tell just as much—if not more—about you than any old tea leaves ever could.

 

Tim Hortons

You’re a traditionalist; you don’t care if your coffee is direct trade or organic or even really all that good. As long as it’s caffeinated and you can roll that rim once a year, you don’t need much else.

You spend your winter weekends at the hockey rink or watching Jets games on a big screen in someone’s suburban basement, and in the summer, you spend it “givin ’er” at someone’s lake while chugging back Kokanee and Labatt Blue.

Alternately, you’re a broke student who needs to stay up late studying and Tim’s is open literally all night.

 

Starbucks

You don’t know that much about coffee, but you like to pretend that you do and a green and white cup is the perfect fashion accessory to prove it. And who cares about quality, because by the time you dump all that syrup in it, you can barely taste the burnt beans.

You own at least one pair of Ugg Boots or Lululemon sweatpants, have a Pinterest account, and you drink frappucinos on your “cheat days” from your diet. You know they’re just milkshakes, right?

Alternately, you’re a former Starbucks devotee who learned about what good coffee tastes like but are looking for a dessert-in-a-cup flavoured latte that you just can’t get at your artisan coffee place – and you hope no one recognizes you.

 

Second Cup

You were a cool kid in the late 90s or early 2000s and are simultaneously too hip for Starbucks and too cool for Parlour – or maybe you’re an adult who loathes the Starbucks flock mentality and doesn’t get pour-over coffees. You’re probably here for a work meeting or a divorcee here for a date with someone you met online. Your Second Cup around the corner still holds that romantic comedy 90s appeal to you as the cute cafe with the patio, and you’re a Tom Hanks hoping to bump into your Meg Ryan.

Alternately, you’re in the Village and it’s either here or Starbucks. Why isn’t there a hip latte place on Osborne yet?

 

Parlour/Thom Bargen

You pride yourself on being able to satiate your need for a single origin bean, poured through a Chemex, while supporting a local business and buying direct trade beans. You have good taste and a guilt complex.

You either work as a graphic designer, in an arts office, at a non-profit, or as a “communications coordinator” – or you are in school for one of these things, spending your last dollars on a coffee and a tote bag. You lock your bike up outside in the summer and secretly hate that you can’t work there all day on your laptop.

Alternately, you are a hip mom who lives in West Broadway or the West End, meeting your fellow hip moms with your kids before/after a playdate. Or you are Tim Hoover.

 

Cafe Postal

You go out of your way for good coffee and are pretty proud of it. You probably take your latte to go and spend the afternoon flipping through French books at the used book store next door to Cafe Postal; your life in general resembles a pretty French art film and you’re the cute gamine star. In the summer when there are more tourists, you’ll make yourself sparse and take your coffee away from the Forks overflow and smoke cigarettes by the river.

Alternately, you didn’t want to fight for a parking spot downtown or in the West End and just wanted a nice coffee made well. Or, you’re that tourist stoked about the local gem you’ve discovered in the cute, quaint French part of town and are Instagramming your find.