Welcome to Seattle, Mr. Coffee. But please sit down. You look so pale and weak.
I can say with some confidence that by the time you’ve steeped yourself in Seattle’s coffee culture today, you’ll leave enriched and robust. You may even be able to fly home without benefit of a plane.
Let’s stop here a minute at the airport Starbucks Coffee stand and get you perking. Don’t be alarmed by all the people on gurneys with IV tubes hooked to the espresso maker. Those are simply Seattleites home after long trips.
On our tour today, you’ll hear from Northwest people who will explain why all the coffee world is watching Seattle. And a large world it is too. Coffee is the second-biggest commodity behind oil.
We don’t grow beans here, but our roasters sell to 50 states, and we are the country’s leading supplier of espresso machines and carts. There are street corners where you could fire a fast ball and hit five espresso carts. Density be danged: At least one Seattle cart is said to bring in a six-figure income.
Don’t feel ashamed that you had to come to us, Mr. Coffee. We’ve already had visits from Lord Proctor Silex, Ms. Melitta, you name it. Seattle is leading a revolution of top-grade coffee in a country that traditionally bought the cheapest beans and boiled the grounds to a flavorless blah.
Whatever else you take back to the factory, don’t forget this: Good coffee is not just good beans with fancy packaging. In Seattle, it’s a process of perfection that starts with checking the quality of the earth the bean is grown in and ends with the seductive touch of the espresso puller’s “good morning.”
Americans have been known as java junkies since it became patriotic to drink coffee about the time of the Boston Tea Party.
The folks at Cafe Ole magazine-yes, Seattle publishes a national coffee magazine-told me that at one time we served good coffee in this country. There’s a place called Java, S.D., for instance, which drew people by train from miles around to get well-roasted quality beans.
Theories differ on why it became too expensive to buy good beans, but most prominent is one about a freeze driving up the cost. By the 1950s, when the bottomless cup of coffee became the loss leader at turquoise-and-plastic cafes around the country, we were drinking the dregs.
Our reputation for buying the cheapest beans is so set, in fact, that speciality coffee buyers who travel internationally have to fight growers who say, “Oh, Americans, bring ’em back here and show ’em the culls,” says Roger Sandon, owner of Cafe Ole. Most of your canned coffee grounds are from the robusta bean, which often has the highest caffeine.
Japan, Germany and then Italy are known for buying the best beans, most often arabica, which is what you’ll find in the bulk of U.S. speciality coffees.
The arabica is one reason espresso has less caffeine than regular drip-style coffee; another is the difference in the brewing method.
Now you can’t talk Seattle coffee history and not use the word “Starbucks,” which, as you know, is the largest coffee roaster in the country and booming. As Heather Doran Barbieri, author of “Seattle Emergency Espresso: The Insider’s Guide to Neighborhood Coffee Spots” (Alaska Northwest Books/Graphic Arts, 1992, $9.95), relates: The company was founded by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl in 1971. They used to run up to Vancouver, B.C., to get good beans. In a caffeine-induced brainstorm, they decided to open their own shop at Pike Place Market.
The company was named for the coffee-quaffing first mate in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick.” It really took off after marketing genius and current president Howard Schultz visited Italy in 1983 and came back touting the notion of installing an espresso bar right in the store.
The Italians don’t think we’ve got it right, yet, since they wouldn’t dream of putting milk in their espresso after 10 a.m. But they’re intrigued by our success.
Two of our bigger roasters, Torrefazione Italia and Caffe Mauro (soon to be Caffe D’arte), have Italian roots. But Starbucks gets credit for first educating consumers about the wonders of espresso and setting a standard for consistency.
You’re looking pale again, Mr. Coffee. Let’s swing by the Uptown Espresso here at the foot of Queen Anne Hill and get involved in the morning rush.
The Uptown is routinely voted best espresso bar in such yup-scale periodicals as The Weekly and The Seattle Times’ Pacific magazine. There’s a definite sense of style here, casual yet urban.
Making espresso is an art that can’t be hurried. But people are often in a hurry because they’re on their way to work. So see how they keep those three pitchers of whole, 2 percent and nonfat milk going? They’re going to customize each drink, but they do it in a way that’s most efficient.
Ellen Chevalier, who owns L’Elephant Espresso, worked for six years at the Uptown and also got training at Starbucks.
At Starbucks she learned to time her espresso shots to 19 seconds. Anything more, anything less, Chevalier says, and down the drain it goes.
At the Uptown she learned to make velvet foam, a smooth rich top that makes the latte slide right down. She also learned to “personality surf.”
She told me, “It’s riding the waves. You learn to surf off people’s personalities. Different people come in and you get a rush off them.”
Caffeine helps. Chevalier gets up at 4:30 a.m. seven days a week to open her espresso bar. It’s a former one-car garage enriched to look like a British den. She tanks up herself first thing and then rides off other people’s energy until early-afternoon closing.
The six-figure incomes are rare. Most cart owners will tell you they “make a living.” For everyone who pulls in $60,000, there are many more working 12-hour days to make $10,000.
But the beauty, Mr. Coffee, is where else can you invest $15,000 and be your own boss?
I talked to a woman named Ronni Woods, who opened a cart outside a grocery store in suburban Kirkland with her business partner, Melissa Jory.
Those two scouted their location for 18 months. What they found is if there isn’t a cart in what looks like a good location, there’s usually a reason for it.
It’s hard, sometimes cold, work for a reasonable living, even though they make the best lattes on the East Side, they say, and have the best customers.
Mr. Coffee, you’ve been kicking my shin for an hour. Let’s get up so you can shake out those jitters while I show you what Seattle legend calls the Golden Triangle.
From the corner of Fifth Avenue and Union Street, you’re within sniffing distance of three of the most successful espresso carts in Seattle: Nordstrom, Monorail Espresso and Espresso Vivace. Proof that competition only helps.
But we may be about to brim over.
We seem to have peaked in Seattle, according to David Baron, marketing director for Torrefazione Italia Inc., which is so authentic some people go just to drink in the beauty of the Italian baristes (barmaids).
We have espresso in parking garages, furniture stores, car washes, dental offices, life insurance drive-throughs, fast-food joints. You name it, there’s likely a little red cursive sign reading ESPRESSO, which around here is like ringing the bell for Pavlov’s dog.
The new market is the outside world, Mr. Coffee, which should make you happy. Sandon says he can sit in his office chair and hear where it’s moving around the country. Four months ago, it was Manhattan. Two years ago, it was Minneapolis.
Most recently Cafe Ole has been getting calls from Alabama and North Carolina.
Carole Paulson, associate editor, said she hears “rural noises” in the background, and a backwoods voice will say, “My mother said to call Seattle because you folks know all there is to know about expresso.”
And they’re right, but most often they don’t want to hear about the whole package. Paulson and Sandon shake their heads and figure the ones who love money more than coffee and people are destined to fail.
Said Sandon: “If the Queen of England can afford the best cup of coffee in the world, so can I.”
