VANCOUVER SUN, Thursday, July, 2006
Perhaps more than any place on earth, Vancouver has a deep love affair with its coffee shops. People here talk about their local hangouts with the fondness reserved for a favourite uncle, a secret treehouse in the woods or a worn old couch that can't be thrown out.

Maybe it's the rainy weather that prompts us to seek the company of others and a cup of hot brew. Maybe it's our cramped-condo living conditions. Maybe it's because we've drifted away from traditional gathering places like churches and service clubs that we enter these new temples in search of sustenance for body and soul. We now worship at the grotto of the coffee urn.

Here, we find common ground. Ideas fly, romances blossom, wounds are healed, books are read and coffee -- lots of coffee -- is drunk in the name of friendship, or just to wake us up. Behind the counters, you will often find a coffee maestro orchestrating machines, juggling staff and handling customers like the conductor of a mad symphony.

Here is a sampling, by no means exhaustive, of some fine independently owned places in which to have coffee in the Lower Mainland. Excluded are the chains like the Starbucks and Tim Hortons. They are a story for another day.

1. Sciue Italian Bakery Caffe
2. Think Coffee
3. Pane e Formaggio

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