Discreetly housed in Old Vic, Caffiends is occasionally dubbed Victoria College’s best-kept secret. Between the loyal crowd of regulars and a steady stream of new visitors, it’s safe to say that the secret’s out. On Monday, the cafe re-opened after its annual summer hiatus and introduced a variety of changes that promise to make this year’s caffeine addiction notably better than last year’s.
The cafe now offers tea from Genuine Tea, a Toronto-based direct-trade company with a focus on providing fresh, high-quality teas. The majority of the teas are organic, and as Genuine Tea switches over to offering entirely organic teas later this year, the cafe will follow suit. Prices remain unchanged, with hot or iced tea available for $1.50 and tea lattes available for $3.50. Also on offer is the Tea of the Week promotion, wherein one featured tea each week is available for $1.25 (or $3.25 for a tea latte).
A shift to a higher quality product is also seen in the introduction of Japanese matcha (finely powdered green tea; Caffiends’ is ceremonial grade, also supplied by GenuineTea). It is lauded for its health benefits, such as antioxidant polyphenols and anti-inflammatory chlorophyll. It is considered superior to those of standard green tea since, when drinking matcha, the entire tea leaf is consumed. Matcha is available hot or iced for $2.00, and as a latte for $4.00.
Rounding out the cafe’s novel features is the retirement of the manual cash register and the introduction of its replacement, the Square digital point-of-sale system. As a result of generous funding through the Victoria College Student Projects levy, Caffiends is now able to accept credit (VISA, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover) in addition to cash.
In the midst of all these changes, the cafe’s mission to be as environmentally sustainable as possible remains in the shape of their unique reusable mug policy—Caffiends does not offer take-out cups, but rather invites customers either to bring their own travel mug or to enjoy a drink from one of the cafe’s own eclectic collection of mugs. Customers have free reign to take a Caffiends mug anywhere on campus, so long as they return it to the café, or to the drop-off crate outside the cafe after hours.
Caffiends is open weekdays from 9:00am to 6:00pm, and is located in Room VC111 in the Old Victoria College Building.
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