Café au Ladies

Peach Blossom Tea Latte (or 如意桃花红茶拿铁)

Rachel says: Lifen lives in Shanghai, where she owns and runs a traditional tea house and tea shop. It's a dream she always had growing up, and she feels like she really lucked into the sort of "tea resurgence". She loves the serenity of the tea room, and the fact that her two daughters can play in the garden while she's at work. I feel like her children are really her centre. Weekends they usually spend together reading, watching movies, or baking - they love coming up with new desserts, and eating them while they're hot out of the oven. She's weirdly talented at pai gow, although she hardly ever plays. I think she also really enjoys going to the opera.

Rachel says: This is Aimi (left, BC Roll) and Camellia (right, Green Tea). Aimi and her cat, Wasabi, currently live in Vancouver, British Columbia, where Aimi attends Emily Carr. Camellia, who goes to the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, is up for a visit. They spend their time together collaborating on ideas for movie scripts and graphic novels, in the hopes that one day they will be rich and famous.  Aimi loves to go for long walks through Stanley Park, and to Instagram pictures of her food.  If anything is particularly delicious, she will also text pictures to all her friends, with all-caps captions like “BE JEALOUS”. She loves thrift-store shopping and watching old sitcoms.  Camellia’s favourite thing in the world is poutine; she mourns the dearth of poutine in California nearly daily on her Twitter. She has a long standing love of Archie comics, and collects them to do this day. She hates socks.

Art by Kora. 

Sketch of Melody, our Skinny Vanilla Latte.

Short Vanilla Spice Latte

Rachel says: This is Emily. Currently, she plays bass for an all-girl punk group called the Glitter Leeches. Music has always been her passion, and she's been playing bass since she was fifteen. Of course she never played with her high school band - she was too busy feeling misunderstood and imagining herself as the lead in her own personal episode of Daria (still her favourite show). This fantasy was aided by the fact that she only ever had one really good friend, who is her best friend to this day. Now 22 years old, Emily works several part-time jobs while struggling to devote herself to music. Her favourite of these is at a dying local video store, where she is the manager. She steals rock candy swizzle sticks from the fifty-cent bin on the counter and watches Disney movies during her shifts. She loves post-apocalyptic science fiction novels, and the colour pink. 

Sketch of Bernadette, our Grande Vanilla Rooibos Tea Latte.

Grande Pumpkin Spice Latte with Cinnamon (and whipped cream)

(Order up for kermodei, nerdygirlswag, marvel-grrl, captainjackhardness, and many anons)

Rachel says: This is Lola. She's in her second year at Harvard, doing a masters in Business. She's clearly on her way to a party of some sort - I'm thinking her birthday party. I feel like she might have asked her friends for a small, appropriate party, before giving them a 35-person guest list and telling them she'd "act surprised". She's vivacious and fun, and incredibly smart. After her degree she'll move to New York and work semi-obsessively, so she can make enough money to retire early. She's very driven. She also has an intense obsession with fashion; one of the reasons she looks forward to making money is that she can finally afford to splurge on all the clothes she covets. She's less about haute couture, however, and more about finding fun or frilly outfits that make her feel excited to put them on. Forever21 is her weakness. She loves dancing, and is constantly pressing her friends to try Zumba with her. She reads her horoscope every morning, and, if no one is looking, she eats frosting right out of the can.

Hey everyone! Our new girl will be posted later today! Before that, I just wanted to let everyone know about our new FAQ's page! If you ask us a question (or send us love - thanks so much for that!), after it's been answered (maybe after a day or so) it'll get moved to a permanent home on the FAQ's page. We wanted to keep the main page full of what you come to see - the ladies! 

It may take us a while to get back to your messages, but we do read every single one. 

Back with another sketch, this time of our Tall Very Berry Hibiscus Refresher, Emiko, (whom we have nicknamed "Poor Hibiscus", since she has the least notes, but is still a personal favourite of mine).

Tall Gingerbread Latte (with whip) and Grande Eggnog Latte

Rachel says: this is Margot (gingerbread) and Aemilia (eggnog). To me, they're very clearly university roommates. They're both from Vancouver, but I feel as though they're going to school abroad somewhere, possibly the Netherlands. Being from the same place and meeting abroad cemented their friendship really quickly; Aemilia wonders if they would have been friends otherwise. Margot is outgoing and charismatic, and regularly performs numbers from "the Pirates of Penzance" while drunk. She has a vague idea of being a CFO because it sounds both important and ambiguous, but she will likely marry a European stranger on an impulse and will spend a few years travelling instead. Aemilia envies Margot's sparkling style, but is much loved for her own soft sense of humour, and her willingness to try new experiences. Although she might not look it, she is always game to try strange foods and new adventures like skydiving. She wants to be a baker, and own something fun like a trendy cupcake shop or a French Pâtisserie. Together, Margot and Aemilia are most often found shopping, going for pizza, or watching old romantic comedies on Netflix. Margot loves brown sugar, which she eats with a spoon, and she only ever reads the life & style section of the newspaper. Aemilia scours food blogs as part of her morning ritual, and has a thing for cotton candy. 

Short Cool Lime Refresher

Rachel says: Amanda is a professional seamstress, and primarily works on costumes for theatre and independent movies. She's recently gotten engaged, however, and most of her time lately has been spent crafting her own wedding dress; she hopes to make something elaborate enough that she can enter it into competition. A good portion of her day is spent scrolling through wedding boards on Pinterest. She has a wonderfully dry sense of humour and an energetic but somewhat reserved personality. At first, her wit can seem offensive; but those who know her know she has a giant heart. She's never been outside of the United States. She talks dreamily about packing it all in and moving to a tropical country, but her sense of practicality probably wont let her. She loves cupcakes, and green apple Jolly Ranchers. She collects stuffed rabbits.

Just a quick update (and explanation for the dry spell):

Fall has been crazy, y'all! What with Rachel going back east to resume law schooling, and me dealing with lots of overtime at work (and a year of Maid of Honour duties culminating in a late September wedding up in the Okanagan), we've gotten behind on our coffee girls. We've got a girl drawn and ready, just waiting for her character description, and we'll be posting her this week.

Hopefully we'll resume a more consistent posting schedule again, but in the meantime check back for sketches, new posts, and other such sundries.

Tall Cinnamon Dolce Latte

Rachel says: This is Kalila. I feel like she's already a fairly established woman in business. She seems to be walking with a lot of purpose. Maybe she's some sort of high powered executive, or investment banker. She seems fairly sly, like she knows she's more clever than I am. She just exudes a lot of confidence. She might be a bit of a health junkie; I get the sense that she makes her own granola. Probably eats a lot of quinoa. She's the type who loves doing puzzles. She looks forward to the New York Times crossword, and she breezes through Sudoku. She goes to singles bars "ironically" with her friends, but she's a secret romantic, and she always looks hopefully around the room for "the one".