I found my conscience on Oakwood

I’d seen the sign on Oakwood Avenue. It was a new spot, but with a name like that, I knew there was more to it—and I wanted to find out what it was.  

Inside, it smells like fresh-baked bread, and the menu is in Spanish. Now, I grew up in Toronto, but I wanted to be clever and funny. I looked at the lady behind the counter and said, in my best accented Spanish, “I’ll have the campesino coffee… because I am a campesino (peasant).”

The truth was, I had no idea what the coffee would taste like. When it arrived, it was surprisingly sweet. I blurted out, “It has sugar in it!”

“That’s panela,” she replied with a smile. Panela is unrefined, organic raw cane sugar—the traditional way campesinos drink their coffee in the mountains of Colombia. I would have known that if I were actually a campesino.

The coffee, of course, was delicious.

The name of this place: “Café Conciencia.” The lady at the counter is Rosmary Mera, the owner. That embarrassing exchange was how I met her. She and her daughter, Angy, run the place together.  Angy handles the baking—low-sugar, gluten-free, and always with a flavor of Colombia. 

They are from the Colombian “coffee axis,” where some of the world’s finest beans are grown. It’s safe to say, they know their coffee.

But for Rosmary, the coffee is just the beginning; it’s a vehicle for her purpose: “To transform the world, both personally and globally.”

“This café has changed my life and that of my daughter,” she told me. “I also wanted to change how the area sees this corner.”

Oakwood and Eglinton is a fast-moving intersection. It’s not exactly a place where you’d expect to find a quiet, cozy retreat. But Rosmary and Angy have created a welcoming space where as Rosmary says, “people can read, be calm, and find peace.”  Beyond their friendliness, their shop has something a lot of other cafés are missing, true feng shui.

The cafe is small, but it doesn’t feel crowded. Their furniture is tailored to the space. If you’re on your own, you can sit on a stool by the counter at the window, sip your coffee and watch the world zoom by the intersection, like i did. 

I can’t say if I grew a conscience on that stool – but I now have a deep awareness I am not a campesino.