Where to Find Real Coffee in Seattle

Like cancer starts with one cell, Starbucks started with one store.  Here is ground zero for the espresso drink craze that has swept the nation.  Your intrepid blogger has just returned from a month of working in Seattle, which explains the lack of posts during the month of October.  I wasn’t too busy – I was afraid that the Starbucks secret police squad would raid my apartment while I was at work, or attack me when I walked past at least 15 of their stores like this one on my way to get a real cup of coffee.  Starbucks using a Clover is like putting discount tires on a Ferrari – a Clover can’t make great coffee if it’s using horrible beans.  I had the added joy of being in Seattle when Starbucks rolled out their Via brand instant coffee.  Most stores were offering taste tests.  I can only imagine what that was like:  “which cup tastes more like licking asphalt, A or B?  Here, let me add a pint of milk to distract from the flavor.”  Note to Howard Schultz – you are undoing all the time you spent trying to brand Starbucks as quality by introducing instant coffee.  No one cares how it tastes.  Coffee is an experience – remember?  I seem to remember Tang touting how convenient it is to just add water.

While I’m willing to concede that Seattlites consume more coffee flavored beverages than other urban dwellers, I’m not ready to give that they have the best coffee.  During my tenure in the Northwest I found a few places that were worthy of the Too Many Starbucks seal of approval.

Most people in this country, and even in Seattle, have never had a real cup of espresso.  A properly pulled shot has an amazingly complex taste with a smooth as silk feel.  Vivace has the best espresso I’ve ever tasted.  They even suggest tips on how to drink it for maximum enjoyment.  While Starbucks pays homage to Italy by naming the sizes in Italian, Vivace aims to replicate the Italians passion for great espresso.  A double shot of espresso takes less time to drink than it does to pay for it, so real espresso has little chance of becoming popular in this country.  That means we will have to endure preposterous creations like the “pumpkin latte” for a long time to come.

The other light in the primarily overcast Seattle days is Trabant Coffee & Chai.  They are the only coffeehouse in Seattle other than the green monster to use a Clover (I heard there is another independent coffeehouse in Ballard that uses one, but I didn’t want to enter the largest concentration of Saabs and Volvos outside of Scandinavia to find it).  Trabant is the second coffeehouse I’ve found that uses 49th Parallel Coffee, and their baristas undergo months of training before they are unleashed on the general public.  I went to both Trabant locations during my stay and fell in love with the Honduras El Manzano, winner of the 2009 Honduras cup of excellence.  What I liked best about Trabant is they focus on serving great coffee not on showing how self righteous they are by decorating the store with pictures of coffee plantations and smiling workers.  49th Parallel pays much more than the fair trade price for their beans, yet they don’t feel the need to brag about it.