Coffee is hip (actually, it's been that way for several years now), and everyone is drinking it, including kids and teens. When I was a kid, we never drank coffee. It was seen as a "grown-up" thing to do, right up there with having sex, smoking cigarettes, and mortgages. But now you see kids and teens with a Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts cup in their hands, and coffee shoppes are the new malt shoppes.

The Boston Globe's Beth Teitell has an interesting piece on the trend, noting how we try to cut high sugar sodas and fat-filled candy from schools but we're not really thinking about high calorie/high fat/high sugar coffee drinks. Funny how coffee was always seen as an adult thing when soda has caffeine and sugar in it too.

I just wrote about Texas microbreweries proposing to be able to sell retail. Now Pennsylvanian markets wants to be able to sell beer at the cafes in supermarkets, but two senators are trying to kill the whole idea. Now I have to say that the alcohol laws in PA seem a bit strange to me. I never actually understood them in my visits to the state and sometimes had a difficult time figuring out where I could buy a case of beer.

Now under consideration by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board are liquor license applications which would allow supermarkets to serve and sell six-packs as long as the sales occur in sit-down, 30-seat cafes that are separated by a wall from the rest of the store. While this sounds good to me, it doesn't quite fit in with what a few of the state legislature think. A few want to tighten up the proposals, make sure the cafe and supermarket are two separate businesses, have separate cash registers and cashiers, insure that the cashiers who are at least 18 years old, and a few other items.

These sound fine to me, but other legislators seem scared of opening the door to supermarkets being able to sell beer by the case like beer distributors, and feel that brews should only be able to be purchased by the six-pack from a deli.

In this Post-Gazette article the governor's spokeswoman says it's quite unlikely Mr. Rendell would support a liquor code change forbidding beer sales in supermarkets, adding that the governor thinks beer sales at supermarket cafes is inevitable.

Do you go to the library to read and do research or to eat and drink?

That's the question that students and other visitors to the W.E.B. DuBois at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst will have to ask themselves. Seems that so many people are shunning the library in favor of doing research at home on their computers. So the library has thought of ways to get people in the door again, and some of these ideas prove that it's not your father's library. Besides having cellphone isolation booths (which I would think are as much for other patrons than the cellphone user), they're also putting in a hip cafe where the circulation used to be, and a lounge. You can get coffee, soft drinks, pastries. You can even get food delivered to the library if you want! Add to that new bistro tables and cool lime green arm chairs (and the fact that it's open 24 hours a day during the week) and you have some place you might actually hang out in.

This could be a new trend? I mean, how long before a Starbucks opens at your local library?

The news isn't that the Taiwanese government just realized that excessive caffeine can cause symptoms such as upset stomach, dizziness, anxiety, bad moods and trouble at work after a month-long study. Don't people know this already?!?!

The news is that coffee shops in Taiwan have added caffeine-content advisories to their menus with that warning from health officials. It's a color coded system: coffee drinks with more than 200 mg of caffeine get a red mark, caffeine levels of 100-200 mg get yellow, and drinks with less than 100 mg get green.

If you're new to an area, or simply looking to find new, independent cafés in your town, Delocator.net might be use to you. Enter a zip code and Delocator will search listings of over 5,000 non-corporate cafés within a radius of up to 20 miles. Currently the listings are for the U.S. and Canada. Listings are based on entries from readers, so the number of coffee shops tracked by Delocator is constantly growing. Results include contact info, website links and brief descriptions. Spot-checking a few zip codes in my area, Delocator returned a pretty complete list of the coffee shops I know to be in operation. Also listed in the results are locations for a certain other coffee shop, just in case you were wondering.

I'm the sort of woman who falls in love easily. Never fear, my husband's honor isn't in any danger. No, I fall in love with proprietors of cafes, coffee shops, and bakeries. I flit from one to the next, never falling out of love exactly, but giving my heart - and my dollar - far more fully to whoever's the newest sweet-o-my-heart.

This week, my one true love is Li Doyle, whose name I only know from Googling her. Her establishment is Patisserie Cafe Lili (which should, if I do my French right, be Cafe Patisserie Lili, but - oh well), and it's in the tony antique-shopping neighborhood of Sellwood here in Portland. It's a few miles from my house, and would normally be way out of my way - except for when I make a pilgrimage to "The Bins," the Goodwill outlet (Portland's ultimate thrift experience - oh how I love it).

During my last pilgrimage, I needed coffee, and saw this friendly-seeming cafe only a few blocks away. I parked and ran to the front door only to realize it was still in a pre-grand-opening mess. I walked back to my car, disappointed. I'd opened my door when the owner ran out. "Let me make you a drink!" she said eagerly.

How could I refuse? She chatted eagerly, showing me her almost-completed kitchen and proudly telling of her accomplishment in opening this retail outlet (she's been baking wholesale for years). She fixed me a latte despite her unprepared state. She refused money, making me take my dollars back, and asked me just to come back once the cafe was opened.

It's open now, and you can bet I'll be visiting frequently, far though it is from my daily grind. I'm in love with Li, and while it lasts, she'll be getting all my attention and - most importantly - a good deal of my money.