Breaking Up With Starbucks, by Alyssa Brennan

Ever since Starbucks has turned into Gun Nut Central I no longer fall in line there with the rest of the weekend yoga-pantzerati for my non-fat, no-foam latte.  Instead I opt for the hipper Peet’s Coffee.

Going to Peet’s is not convenient. Peet’s is located five crucial, pre-latte minutes out of the way and features a soul-crushing parking experience to boot, but Peet’s has come out in favor of ensuring gun safety in their shops so I view the weekend parking hunger games as small sacrifice for the greater gun safety cause.

Coffee elitists like my husband claim Peet’s has superior coffee, so I looked forward to finally upgrading from Starbucks to the edgier Peet’s experience. But if by “better coffee” people mean that Peet’s lattes are more bitter, then they are correct. I’m trying to be grown-up about it, though, because Thich Nhat Hahn insists change is an opportunity to grow and being able to taste some espresso through the milk seems like something I should have been able to do all along.

On the bright side, these inconveniences are a far smaller price to pay compared to the unthinkable price paid by Noah Pozner’s mother.  Plus I finally get to order a “small” latte instead of feeling like Euro-faux Madonna ordering a “tall” latte, like someone in an occupied country forced to use the language of the conquerer. The hubs would like me to state that for the record, when he is forced to patronize a Starbucks he truly patronizes a Starbucks by using our native sizing language.

More latte-r,

Me