One more than arbitrary day not long ago I finally got put on the “Quote of the Day” board.

For the longest time I’d thought of things to say that might be considered [by the old keepers of the board] worthy of such a profound space shared by the likes of Einstein, Eastwood and Estrel (Eric, that is…).  But, when the day came I was unprepared and while engaged in some exchange I cannot recall, expelled something half-conclusive like, “Well, context matters…”  And, so it did that day, mattered enough to take a spot on the blackboard.  It might’ve been there for a day, or two, but in that time while I sat in a corner of the cafe I thought “okay, that’s ambiguous, but context determines why I do a lot of the things I do and inhabit the spaces I inhabit”.

All things considered a Cafe seems to be a befitting context for me. I’ve been fortunate to have lived in places known for the coffee culture, and within those spaces, sat on chairs, benches, and stools of vintage, custom and uber-hip color and form.  Yet, to me, the true defining quality throughout is the human element, for better, or worse.  ”People”, I’ve thought countless times whilst in a cafe, “….are so ridiculous, …so weird, …so interesting, …so predictable, …so (fill in the blank) “.  I’ve sat in arms reach of break-ups, business deals and more neurotic tirades than I could throw a Frappuccino at, but it’s all important in some strange way.  Much of it I consider potential creative content worth it’s existential weight in single-origin beans.  Somehow comments and people become subjectively twisted around into more of a caricature taken “out” of context by yours truly…

Hence, “Gluten Free Socks”…

…I don’t know why, perhaps it’s a combination of things I overheard.  I think it’s funny, but am in no such position to explain why, so I’ll just guess that it causes simultaneous firings in the brain that essentially have the same effect as being tickled, so in the same way somebody is ticklish and then miraculously “not” is probably about the same thing as being tickled by the concept of Gluten Free Socks one moment and being offended by its stupidity the next.

Some folks are just incapable of being ticklish.

“Apple Disguised as a Lemon”

This apple, here, is disguised as a juicy lemon.  I don’t know why.  I don’t know how the apple got there in the first place and why it’s necessary for it to be wearing glasses (apple astigmatism though little known is a budding epidemic). But, I’ve learned that neither of these things matter.  There is a concept here that arguably every person can relate to regardless of whether apples or lemons are familiar fruits to them.  That’s more, or less what my goal is…

These are merely excerpts from what truly churns within whilst sitting, ruminating and sipping and whether it’s magic, caffeine, or planetary alignment I should be thanking, I cannot honestly say.  The fact is this space we call the cafe is just a little slice of life, or an intersection of of many lives, a microcosm, context within context.  I wouldn’t, for now, choose to go work, play or laugh in a more luxurious space with a view because my preferred view is street level at the intersection of 1st Avenue and Pike, “The Zoo” in summertime and “The Wash” in winter, where I peer from one of those corners of SCW and simply tune in…and sip probably the best cup of house coffee under the rain shadow.

September • 2012

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Seattle!

If we went just by the numbers, (y)our lil’ coffee company recently doubled in size. We went from one store to two, from ten fine coffee companions to twenty. As some of you know, we opened Ballard Coffee Works earlier this year.

While opening our second store has kept us really busy, it’s high time for an update on the coffees we’re currently enjoying. A few old favorites have made their way back into our roastery, and a couple of new exciting coffees as well. For a complete list of our current offering please check out our website. Read on for a couple of this autumn’s highlights.

HIGH SCORING ETHIOPIA YIRGACHEFFE WOTE KONGA

“Richly structured coffee with an intense balance of sweet, bitter and tart tastes supporting complex aromatics: lavender-like flowers, pecan, fresh-cut fir, and most strikingly, an unusual fruit note simultaneously suggesting mango and melon. Rich, deep acidity; lively, lightly syrupy mouthfeel. The complex fruit note in particular carries into a drying but sweet finish,” wrote Coffee Review, the North American coffee world’s authority on scoring coffee, after a blind cupping of this coffee.

Check out more details of how the cuppers at Coffee Review arrived at their 92 score here. We’ve only a small amount of this coffee left. Get it as long as it lasts.

COFFEE WITH A STORY BALI KINTAMANI NATURAL

For all of you esteemed customers who have followed us for a few years, y’all have probably seen or even tasted the Bali Kintamani Natural. While the fad surrounding “Direct Trade” is starting to fade, please know that every single respectable coffee roaster in the US buys at least some coffee from importers. (Whether en vogue or not, we’ll buy as much coffee as we can directly from farmers around the world, see also 2 Cents About Direct Trade.) Even more, feel free to be surprised that most of the greatest coffee in the US is imported by Royal Coffee (Oakland and New York.) Royal Coffee imports a few container loads of coffee every day (that’s about 1,000 bags or 130,000 pounds of raw coffee every day!)

The Bali Kintamani Natural represents the best of what only importers of that size can do. Max Fulmer of Royal Coffee went to Indonesia in the summer of 2009, visiting several of the Indonesian islands. As he visited Bali, which has yet to succeed to position itself as a brand-name coffee-growing region, he saw an opportunity to use the “natural” process in the water-poor highlands of Kintamani to both improve the quality and consistency of the resulting coffee. Max did what only a coffee-minded importer can do, he proposed a no-risk experiment to the farmers at a specific Subak Abian: Try the natural-process method for one season. We’ll buy a container (40,000 pounds) of your coffee regardless of the outcome of the experiment.

The experiment worked. The resulting cup is one of the juiciest, most fruit-forward cups we’ve tasted around here. We’re proud to say that we recognized the excellence of this coffee already in 2009. Now we’re in our third year of buying and roasting it. The newest crop just arrived. Try this coffee, it tends to go fast.

ELITE COFFEE PANAMA LA BERLINA

Just in time for the holiday season, we’ve received this year’s special coffee, the Panama La Berlina Gesha. If you’re looking for a truly special coffee, the equivalent of a $100-a-bottle wine, this is your opportunity, and at $39 for an 8oz bag a steal. The Panama La Berlina Gesha is produced by one of Panama’s oldest coffee estates. The Gesha varietal is considered by many the tastiest of all Arabica coffee varietals. Expect the finest in coffee: rich floral notes, syrupy, apricot, lime, lingering finish. Delish!!! Order your special treat now!

UNIQUE FISH AND OTHER RARE CREATURES: A COFFEE-INSPIRED ART SHOW

Soon after Brandon Arnold moved to Seattle last year, he practically moved in with us. Fueled by his daily house coffee, Brandon created a series of characters in unusual situations. Please join us for an informal opening of his new show Unique Fish and Other Rare Creatures. Be prepared to laugh hard as you take a look at the accompanying book (exclusively on view at the event) which features even more creatures created not just by coffee but also French bistro fare and various adventures deep into Seattle’s gutters.

When: Wednesday, October 3, 2012, 5-7pm
Where: Seattle Coffee Works, 107 Pike Street, Seattle, WA
What: An informal opening of Unique Fish and Other Rare Creatures. Meet the artist, Brandon Arnold.

After seeing Andrew Zimmern  from The Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods Show at our Slow Bar (click on Andrew’s picture to see the original clip), King 5 reporter Jesse Jones wanted to test whether a $100/lb Cup of Excellence coffee is worth the price. We spent a couple of hours with him to find out.

Results: about half the people could taste the difference, the other half liked our “regular” ($14.95/12oz) coffee from Colombia (Colombia Huila Monserrate). That’s not surprising since the Cup of Excellence coffee is now more than 1 year old — and our “regular” coffee is excellent, too!

Just to be clear, the reason coffees like this are so expensive is:

1) The CoE coffee is (in this case, was) great (it’s meticulously grown, picked, sorted, processed, packaged and exported with attention to detail and TLC).

2) Cup of Excellence is a nonprofit consortium that aims to raise the quality of all coffees, and all coffee farmers’ lives. It gives farmers an incentive to improve their farming practices and the quality of their produce, rather than simply focusing on yield. None of the folks in the supply chain other than the farmer made money on this coffee. (We, here at SCW, recovered less than 50% of what it cost us to buy the coffee, and that’s not counting our work in sourcing, roasting, bagging, and rebagging the coffee.)

3) The $100 price tag is meant to jolt us coffee drinkers out of our complacency with a system that cheats farmers and exploits the environment. If you are drinking coffee for $1 with free refills, you are likely physically hurting people and poisoning their land with every sip. Changing this imbalanced trade dynamic is something we at Seattle Coffee Works support 100%.

So, what was Arnulfo Leguizamo, the hardworking winner of last year’s Colombian coffee competition going to do with the prize money? He used his winnings to take his children to the seaside for the first time — a small luxury that we hope the whole family will savor as much as we savor their masterpiece. That’s something nice to swallow.

We are long sold out of the Colombian Cup of Excellence coffee that Andrew enjoyed (we had a very small remnant to test the hypothesis). But as the new crop comes in from South America and Asia, and soon again Central America and East Africa, we have some amazing new coffees that are well worth trying! Check out an overview of most of our assortment here.  Let’s drink some coffee!

P.S.: Here is Jesse’s piece on King 5 as it aired on the 5 o’clock news.

Late November • 2011

DEAR FRIENDS AND FAMILY,

We’re close to the Holiday Season, and we’ve some beautiful new coffees AND equipment for you just in time for the big feast. Also, we’re opening our second store, and we’re looking for a few fine folks to join our team. Love, Your Seattle Coffee Works Team

State-of-Art Coffee Grinders at

Reasonable Prices

People ask all the time about the most important piece of equipment in making coffee: the grinder.

If you take it apart, you’ll see that a coffee grinder has either two discs or two conical burrs that rub against each other. If your “grinder” is one of those upside-down lawnmowers (aka spice or blade grinder), please be advised that it will be very hard to produce consistently good coffee. Ultimately, we’re interested in the quality of your grinder only because we want you to be able to taste how much better a meticulously sourced and roasted coffee tastes compared to much of the stuff out there.

We have the grinder for you!

Our entry-level is the Baratza Maestro Plus Coffee Grinder. CoffeeGeek.com says: “In its class, this is the best grinder you can get.” You can buy it for $129.00 (free shipping, no tax outside WA). Shop around – you simply won’t find a better price. For bells and whistles, check out the Baratza family of grinders. Here in the cafe, we’re using the Baratza Virtuoso with Esatto Scale – a great combo for precision AND value.

Coffee Tip - Guatemala Antigua Finca

Lorena, delicious Ethiopians, new arrival

We just released this year’s Guatemala Antigua Finca Lorena. The 2011 lot weighs in at 340 pounds – a mini-microlot! This coffee is Lorena Garcia’s labor of love, with a lot of help from her husband Aurelio Hernandez. Aurelio visited Seattle in September and some customers even got a hand-signed bag of coffee directly from him! Taste the difference a true direct-trade relationship can make.

Some outstanding coffees just in from Ethiopia: Yirgacheffe Work Cooperative and Yirgacheffe Chelektu Mill are juicy and refreshing, natural-process coffees. Also, for a milder more mellow-flavored African coffee, try: Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Koke Cooperative.

More coffees from South America (Colombia, Brazil, Peru) and the Asia Pacific Region (Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Bali, Papua New Guinea) are on their way. Please bookmark the single-origin section of our website and check often. We buy only as much coffee as we can roast and sell within eight months after harvest, so quantities of a specific coffee are always very limited. Luckily, there is also always a thrilling new coffee waiting in the wings.

We’re Opening a Second Store in Ballard,

and we’re hiring!

When the opportunity came up to take over a corner store from a small Seattle-based coffee chain, we jumped at the chance. We’re remodeling the space, and looking for a few fine people to join our team. Take a peek at our ad. If you or someone you know are interested in a career in coffee, please get in touch. Have a wonderful holiday season and let’s drink some coffee!

Love people? Love coffee?
Seattle Coffee Works LOVES you!

SCW is seeking team members for both our downtown location and our new store opening in BALLARD!

If you:
Love coffee
Love people
Are seeking a long term career opportunity in the coffee industry
Consistently work hard in a fast paced environment
Have exceptional multitasking abilities
Can follow through on projects
Love being a part of a team
Are committed to excellence

We want to meet you.

Send a resume and a brief personal statement identifying why you want to work with coffee and why you want to do so at Seattle Coffee Works to emily@seattlecoffeeworks.com to be considered.

Seattle Coffee Works is a small, independent company serving excellent coffee to our community. We are currently growing and are looking for folks to grow with us. We are committed to serving our community, fostering happiness, and doing so by roasting, brewing, and serving outstanding coffee every day.

Just as our company strives to consistently improve our product and our customers’ experience, we are looking for teammates who are lifelong students and seek new and innovative ways to push themselves as well as their fellow workers. We look forward to getting to know you!

August • 2011

Our Excellent Summer Coffees

Arnulfo Leguizamo, 2011 Colombia Cup of Excellence Winner

Hello Friends,

In the midst of a spectacular Seattle summer, the 2011 Colombia Cup of Excellence brings brightness and beauty to our roastery and café. Wired Magazine recently wrote a full length article, “Sip, Spit, Grade: Coffee Experts Crown Colombia’s Best Beans”, describing how this award-winning coffee was produced. Bizarre Food’s Andrew Zimmern who came by our cafe last week to film a segment for the upcoming season, thought this coffee was “insane.” (We’d like to think he meant insanely good.) Suffice it to say that few coffees are worth the $49.95 price tag, but this coffee delivers on all fronts: rich, sweet, and sublime.

If you would like to sample a different outstanding coffee for a value price, we suggest the Colombia Geisha. For $34.95, this coffee has beautiful balance and depth.

Great new in-season coffees for under $15

For those of you seeking just a straight-up excellent coffee, we have not forgotten about you. Check out the wonderfully fruity, and according to one customer “addictive” Ethiopia Bench Maji. One of the team favorites for the past few weeks has been the floral and citrusy Colombia San Augustin. We would be remiss, if we omitted the very seasonal (”Rainier Cherry notes”) Panama Boquete Classico. All of these coffees are available for less than $15.

Top 10 Tips for Brewing the Perfect Cup of Coffee:

1. Use a French Press: Here at Seattle Coffee Works, we tested numerous methods of brewing coffee and found that in a blind taste test, the French Press produced the most consistently excellent results especially considering its easy of use.

2. Fresh Coffee: Have you noticed that we have the roast date on all of our coffee bean bags? We place a primacy on freshly roasted coffee, because coffee beans have a very limited shelf life of 2-3 weeks after the roast date.

3. Freshly Ground: Buy whole coffee beans, not ground. Once coffee is ground, you measure its freshness in seconds, not hours, days, or weeks. Grind your beans just before you brew.

4. Use a Burr Grinder: Invest in a burr grinder, instead of the cheaper, smaller blade grinder. A burr grinder produces a more uniform grind than a blade grinder. You can purchase a serviceable burr grinder for home use for under $50.

5. Filtered Water: Use filtered water: the cleaner and better-tasting the water you use, the more delicious your coffee will be. Faucet filters are the most sustainable and inexpensive way to filter your drinking water.

6. Use the Right Ratios: For every 4 oz of brewed coffee, use a tablespoon of ground coffee.

7. Hot Water, Off the Boil: Bring the water just to a boil and then let it cool for about 45 seconds to about 204 F.

8. Time it: Set your kitchen timer to four minutes and turn it on. Pour the water evenly over the coffee grounds. If you are using freshly roasted coffee, you will notice that the coffee grounds will float to the top.

9. Let the Coffee Bloom: Allow the coffee to bloom for a few seconds, before gently depressing the grounds (so that they all touch the water).

10. Press and Enjoy: Press the pot when the timer goes off and pour immediately.

Tell us what you think of the Colombian coffees and our tips for making the perfect cup of coffee.

Enjoy the rest of the summer,
Your Seattle Coffee Works Team

Andrew Zimmern visits Seattle Coffee Works

We wanted to share with you all the Media Advisory we just released:

Bizarre Foods to film coffee segment at Seattle Coffee Works on Friday July 29, 2011
Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern will sample the award winning 2011 Colombia Cup of Excellence at Seattle Coffee Works Slow Bar

Seattle, WA, July 26, 2011: Travel Channel personality Andrew Zimmern will bring his Bizarre Foods Show to film at Seattle Coffee Works Slow Bar on Friday, July 29. He will sample Seattle Coffee Works roasted 2011 Colombia Cup of Excellence, an award winning coffee, which retails for $100 per pound. Seattle Coffee Works is the only roaster in Seattle to sell this coffee. 513 coffees competed earlier this year for the coveted Cup of Excellence crown in Santa Marta, Colombia. Arnulfo Leguizamo, a coffee farmer from Huila, took home the coveted title. Judges noted that Leguizamo’s coffee possessed “the acidity of passion fruit marked by splendid notes of apricot, lemongrass, jasmine, and tamarind.” The liquor had “a creamy, lingering, caramel flavor mellowed by hints of wild honey”. [“Sip, Spit, Grade: Coffee Experts Crown Colombia’s Best Beans”, Wired Magazine, June 28, 2011] .

Growing up in the Southwest of Germany, I understood at an early age the true meaning of the village pub. There was a brewery with a brew pub in pretty much every town of more than 1,000 people. The meaning of the brew pub was multifold. Mainly, it was where the village elders gathered after church; where we’d go after a funeral; and where we’d go during summer for refreshments. (I did try my first beer at the tender age of three but, seriously, I didn’t swallow it, I promise!)

There were lots of brew pubs where I grew up but barely any coffeehouses. The closest thing to Kaffeehaus was the Konditorei in the big town. They were known for their cream cakes but not for their coffee. Some of the best known Cafes in Berlin, Cafe Kranzler, and Vienna, Cafe Sacher, are known for their cream cakes. The famed prototype of a Viennese Kaffeehaus isn’t known either for their coffee or for their cakes. It’s for that reason I always wondered what made the Kaffeehaus so famous.

Just after my recent espresso crawl in Berlin, Germany, I continued on for a short visit of some very good friends in Vienna. They sent me off on a small crawl of Wiener Kaffeehäuser. Here’s what I learned about Viennese coffeehouses:

• they have a great selection of national and international newspapers;
• their service is fabled for a basic grumpiness; if your waiter or waitress is friendly they’re having a bad day;
• the Vienna specific coffee concoctions like Einspänner or Verlängerter are just names for basic coffee with more or less water or more or less whipped cream.
• you go to a Viennese coffeehouse pretty much for the same reasons the elders in my village visited the village pub;
• sometimes you run into a very famous people, like poets, writers, artists, famous actors;
• the interior design of Viennese coffeehouses follows strict design principles and by and large the goal of the design is to allow customers to see and be seen.

I was wondering what might happen (if it might happen, ever?!) if the traditional Viennese coffeehouses started serving excellent coffee. Would they go out of business? Would it confuse the poets?

A recent trip to Berlin, Germany, afforded me an opportunity to check out the local coffee scene there. The Berlin coffee crawl was a about as sobering (if not more so) than a recent espresso crawl with a couple of friends here in Seattle.

I’ll spare you the details of all the disappointments I had on the way but will say the following was true for each of the espresso bars (all of which roasted their own coffee) I went to:

• the espresso machines were of the single-boiler type with little to no temperature control; I spotted no LaMarzoccos or Synessos or any other quality make of an espresso maker;
• while the interior design of many cafes was truly breath-taking, the emphasis on design didn’t apply to what type of cup to present an espresso in. Most espressos were presented in an 8-oz cup; one time I asked for a double espresso and received – it’s really true! – a 4-oz cup full of a brown and bitter substance which might have been concocted in a Melitta drip filter contraption using old coffee and the wrong grind;
• If the baristas’ equipment and techniques were lacking, the quality of the coffee didn’t help. Coffee often was overroasted, the blends struck me as unsuited for an excellent espresso (single-origin espresso was not an option anywhere I went), the roast date was often not noted on the package.

In all, given the pride Germans take in fine food, the espresso scene was lacking at best. There was a notable exception – Bonanza Coffee Roasters in Prenzlauer Berg. My heart started jumping when I saw a beautiful three-group Synesso Cyncra. The espresso was superb. I briefly met Emile (sp?), one of the two roasters at Bonanza. Bonanza uses a 3kg Probat. Small. Very small. But very very fine. There is hope!

P.S.: After I’d left Berlin, I received a note from Barista Academy Berlin with a couple of recommendations: Double Eye and Berliner Kaffeerösterei. I’ll have to try those out the next time when I am in Berlin.

We want to extend our appreciation to all the participants who made it to Houston this year to compete in the US Barista Championship and the first-ever US Brewers Cup. It is always exciting and rewarding to watch people with such passion and skill throw down. You all make this industry much more engaging and fun.

Congratulations to Pete Licata of Honolulu Coffee, this year’s reigning barista champion. It was a pleasure watching you perform and hearing the tale of your coffee. I only wish I might have tasted it!

Congratulations to Nik Krankl (Gelato Bar & Espresso Cafe) and Ryan Knapp (MadCap Coffee), 2nd and 3rd place barista winners. I wanted to taste your coffees, too!

This first national battle of the manual brewers was of particular interest for me because two dear friends were competing AND both made it into the finals! Oh, the power of the SuperHario Brothers.

Congratulations to Andy Sprenger of Caffee Pronto, the first of the US Brewers Cup champions!

Congratulations to Mike Cannon (Independent!) and Erin McCarthy (gimme!) who placed 2nd and 3rd.

A special shout out to Ben Kaminsky of Ritual Coffee Roasters for once again (3 times!!) taking the title of US Cup Tasters Challenge grand champeen. We love tasting coffee, and apparently, so does Ben.

Finally, we just want to say that having a forum where coffee professionals get to nerd out in the extreme warms the cockles of our coffee geek hearts, and you’re all awesome in our eyes.

~Larissa