Seattle Coffee Works

A new friend of ours, John Reinke who incidentally was the highest bidder for a coffee card at the recent Earthcorps auction, wrote to us about the possibility of an Obama blend – a blend of Indonesian and Kenyan coffees based on Barack Obama’s truly multi-cultural background. While we are not particularly interested in gimmicks and we were hesitant about seeming too partial, we decided to put out a test balloon a couple of days after the election on November 4.

The first six bags of Obama Blend sold within 15 minutes. On our next roast date we made a very large batch of the blend; within two days we were sold out. There seems to be no end in sight.

Admittedly, our Obama Blend is quite spectacular: we have been using our beautiful Kenya Mchana Estate coffee, the most spectacular Kenyan we have come across in a long time, and our amazing Sumatra Mandheling (Fair-Trade Organic). The combination is divine.

Now we’re in the market for more Kenyan and Sumatra as our reserves are coming to an end. If we’re lucky enough to find the right coffees, we’ll even put out an Obama Deluxe Blend which will include some Hawaiian Kona. It’ll be pure bliss!

Jennifer Cabala of Q13 Fox News swung by yesterday to geek out with us about coffee tasting. We took in press pot, espresso, and real-deal cupping samples. We had a great time, and we believe we were able to sufficiently caffeinate the Q13 team.

Read more about it on the Q13 website. We’ll update this posting with the clip, once it’s out.

UPDATE: Here is the clip…

All of us here at Seattle Coffee Works are such coffee fanatics that we find ourselves talking about coffee almost in terms of an alternate reality.

When we named our Guatemala-East Timor blend Chocolate Truffle we didn’t take into account that to everyone else this sounds like a flavored coffee. To us Chocolate Truffle tastes like pure hot chocolate; most folks in this world would describe it more like a smooth and balanced coffee “with a hint of chocolate.”

Admittedly, we’re a little over the top with our descriptions. With that said I think it’s time for an update on what direction the Seattle Coffee Works roastery has taken in recent months, and what new coffees we have recently received.

Direct-Trade Model

Our long-term goal is to move towards a direct-trade model. That means we’re aiming to directly import coffee from farms with socially and environmentally sustainable practices, partnering with individual farms and coops rather than sourcing our coffee from importers who often give us very little background about the coffees sold. Most coffee today is traded anonymously through a chain of middlemen; the model of “fair-trade” certification seems to be only a partial fix to ensuring basic ethical standards.

Some larger roasters have started promoting a “direct-trade” model; yet most of the coffees they sell continue to lack certification let alone a verifiable pedigree. Check it out at the roaster of your choice next time you’re in their store: their best-selling espresso blend usually has no sticker on it. From this little hill it looks like they are pursuing a smart marketing strategy, no more and no less.

Currently we’re doing no better than those roasters but certainly no worse either. Our long-term goal is to source 100% of our coffees directly.

Our Colombia Huila “Monserrate” is a first step in that direction. This highly rated coffee comes to us directly through Atlas Coffee Importers, one of the several importers we use to find the most outstanding coffees. We wish we could get our hands on more such direct-import coffees with a known pedigree; we’re certainly willing and able to pay a premium for this kind of coffee. While this is the way of the future, it seems at this point the only way to make direct-trade happen is for us to grow large enough to start importing directly ourselves.

Satisfying Taste

Having the most conscientiously sourced coffee can be no substitute for a winning taste. Coffee – just like chocolate, wine, and ice cream – has to be delicious; otherwise it has no place in our lives. We have learned that our preferences in coffee do not necessarily predict what our customers like.

One good example is decaffeinated coffee. While decaf drinkers are in the minority, we have come to respect them as true coffee connoisseurs. Decaf drinkers like coffee for its taste alone. Initially, we paid little attention; with our latest green-coffee buy we have improved a little. Try for instance the water-processed Costa Rica, which has an aroma of sweet candy and a good deep body. Both our Sumatra and Guatemala decafs also display desirable profiles of those origins. And then there is our Decaf Chocolate Truffle – well you have to try it for yourself to go crazy over its deep chocolate notes as we did.

Another good example is our new Harrar Longberry (Grade 4) which we sourced through Walker Coffee Trading company. It’s back to a close-to-optimal taste profile – notes of blueberry, fruit, and simply a tasty coffee.

For whom if not for our customers?

When we started Seattle Coffee Works we were focused almost entirely on espresso drinks. At first we didn’t even carry “drip coffee;” we simply brewed up coffee blended for espresso once it was too old to use in the espresso machine. When our customers wanted to buy coffee by the pound we sold them espresso blends as well. We theorized that espresso blends are superior to any “drip coffee” out there. We were wrong about that.

Through our Taste-Off 2008 we discovered that our customers much prefer blends with the medium body of the Central and South American origins. About a month ago, our Atlantic Blend was born. While it’s “smooth” we think it also has plenty of personality to please the true coffee connoisseur.

Speaking of coffee connoisseurs. Our new Chocolate Truffle blend is certified organic and shade-grown (Guatemala); did I mention it’s sumptuous?     

One month ago, Hurricane Ike slammed into the Gulf Coast with 110-mile per hour winds shredding homes in Houston, Galveston and along the Bolivar Peninsula. One month ago residents of the nation’s fourth largest city were displaced as a 20-foot wall of water inundated the coastal port. More then fifty people have died and hundreds are still missing. The stories from victims–of lost relatives, of desperate pleas and of spouses swept out to sea–tug at our nation’s heart.

This week, between 8 am and 10 am, we’re giving you a chance to help. We’re offering free small coffee drinks for every donation of $5 or more to the Hurricane Ike Children in Crisis Fund. All proceeds, either cash or credit, help provide diapers, cribs and other supplies to children and their families affected by Ike.

Please join us this week (Oct. 13-17) for coffee and a good cause.

Please vote for us for Best Coffeeshop in Western Washington — please click here.

Ok, I’ll admit it. We were really excited that our Space Needle was named the winning blend of the 2008 Seattle Coffee Works Taste Off. But we’re equally excited to announce the winner of the Taste Off Sweepstakes.
Yoon Lee of Seattle will be taking home a year’s supply of our coffee…that’s a lot of coffee! Like all of our tasters, Lee cast his vote for the best blend last month and entered to win a free bag of our coffee every month, for twelve months. Lee was randomly chosen from all the contestants who entered.
Last week, Lee came by the café to pick up his first months’ coffee. A wide grin spread across his face as I handed him the bag of our Mellow Seattle blend.  Despite the cold, rainy drizzle outside, Lee’s lighthearted and calm mood seemed to brighten that cloudy, grey afternoon. We sat at the front window and he told me about his journey to Seattle; how his life’s path led him first to a South Korean monastery where he spent a decade learning meditation and yoga. He spoke with a soft, yet determined voice about compassion and peace and how he enjoys teaching yoga to others. He left the monastery in the early 90s, married, and in 2006, he and his wife moved to Seattle. Lee now teaches yoga to employees at area businesses and at Soul Ease in Kirkland.
Before wiggling his hat over his head, preparing to brave the rain again, Lee told me he never expected to win the contest.  Like his path to the monastery, sometimes you’ll never know where life will lead you. Perhaps to a coffeeshop downtown with delicious coffee…

Thank so much, Yoon! We hope you enjoy the coffee.

First: a HUGE thank you to everyone who tasted coffee at our Taste Off event this past month! We had so much fun sharing our coffee and listening to your opinions on the best coffee in town. We’re really excited to announce the favorite blend and the lucky winner of our Sweepstakes, who will be receiving a year’s supply of coffee from us.
Throughout August and September we brewed up a number of our own blends and single origins, tasting them alongside each other and, for good measure, alongside corporate Starbucks to see if we could offer a more flavorful cup of Seattle’s favorite morning brew.
And, drum roll please…
Our Space Needle blend emerged as the contest’s favorite!
We heard quite a chorus of support about our blend’s full-bodied complexity that really satisfied their coffee cravings. It’s rich in body and full on the tongue, but doesn’t leave that bitter aftertaste.
While we’re thrilled about our winner, we also want to share a few things we learned from this incredible experience. Namely we learned about the palate and what people are looking for in a really good cup of coffee. Okay, ready to take some notes?
1. We discovered that medium to big-bodied coffee varietals trumped light and bright coffees. When compared side by side, the coffees from Central and South America were bigger hits than those from East Africa and Indonesia. Let’s rephrase this: Central and South Americans were the favorites; Indonesians were liked by fewer people, and the East Africans appealed the smallest crowd.
2. Although our sweet and fruity Africans appealed to fewer tasters, those who did like Africans, LOVED them. The fabulous fruity notes found in our Tanzanian, Yirgacheffe and Kenyan intrigued many of the taste-off participants and seemed to convince even the staunchest coffee agnostics that there’s more flavor in a cup of coffee than just BLACK. (And we’ll admit, there are some folks out there who just can’t stand those African varietals!)
3. Our blends’ full flavor beat single origins. While our single origins create delicious drinks, people like a full spectrum of citrusy, earthy and fruity flavors.
4. And lastly, everyone’s palate is different. Okay, so it’s not news. But when it comes to everyone’s favorite cup of coffee, it’s a big deal.

So why are we sharing all this? We’d just like everyone to know that we’re so excited about the varied responses we received about their favorites. Sure, we all like to try new coffees, but at the end of the day, everyone just wants a good cup of coffee, something consistent and delicious. All of our coffees have their own brilliant characteristics and appeal to a wide range of palates and the individual preferences of our coffee drinkers lets us do what we do best: serve up that favorite cup. Whether it’s berry Tanzania, smoky Sumatra, nutty Brazil or our light caramelly Mellow Seattle and sultry sweet Space Needle blends, we love to satisfy everyone’s coffee cravings.
So, let’s drink some coffee!
P.S.: Look for another post sometime later this week announcing the winner of the sweepstakes…

We’re starting our third blog site here — and are simply going to abandon the contents of our previous blog sites. Those contents are sitting somewhere in cyberspace waiting to be unearthed by a fifth millennium historian from Mars looking for evidence that, yes, some people back several thousand years (million, trillion, gazillion, how long will the bits last?) were crazy about coffee.

There are so many little snippets to catch up on in this blog by a little coffee company in Seattle that only today, only this time, a short list seems in order:

• This year alone Seattle Coffee Works has won two-and-one half distinctions:
  • earlier in the year, we were named Seattle Magazine’s 2007 Best Place for a Coffee Tasting, quite a distinction considering that the magazine only chose two coffee shops out of the hundreds available in Seattle;
  • the good people voting on nwsource.com picked us as one of their finalists for their 2008 people’s picks;
  • we have started gaining some speed on yelp.com, and we’re now being reviewed as part of the top five Seattle coffee shops. (I am counting the yelp.com distinction only as a half distinction as yelpers, as much as we love them, tend to be fickle and sometimes punish businesses for things those businesses are not even trying to do).
• Earlier this month we soft-launched our shopping-enabled website — the orders have been pouring in, even though there is still a little construction to be done.
• For almost two months now we have held a daily coffee tasting — every day from 11am to 12pm you can join us for tasting the newest and freshest (and we’d like to think: best) coffees around.
• Vicki Schumann and her Seattle Coffee Crawl have begun their daily tour through downtown Seattle. Finally a tour that gets coffee and comes at a reasonable $15 per person.

More beginnings and surprises are coming — this, really, is just the beginning: of a blog, a business, a coffee company. Let’s drink some coffee!