Last Saturday I spent the day in Seattle visiting a few cafes with friends.  We met up at Arabica Lounge on Capitol Hill.  This was my first visit and it kind of blew me out of the water.  I arrived first so I had time to scope out the space and I liked what I saw.  None of the furniture matches the hardwood floor looks had and the walls could use paint but all of this adds up to why I love this place.  My Macchiato was everything one should be, sweet and balanced.  I had a little much to drink the night before so I had the hangover omelette.  To be honest I wasn’t really thinking the food would be that great luckily for me  I was wrong, it was perfectly cooked and seasoned

When my friends showed up we talked a little about educating coffee consumers, I feel the more we educate the customers as to what good coffee is the more accountable we are to make it for them.  Dooley introduced me to Brian who is organizing  a really rad coffee event.  The gist of it is to bring the Barista closer to the customer in a role of education and not just service.  Brian and I have similar viewpoints on coffee/brewing, especially making it more accessible. We (specialty coffee)  are very serious about training staff why not train customers the same way?

Our next stop was the SBUX on Olive Way.  I was very surprised by what I found inside, there was a double fire-place, semi-private indoor seating as well as open seating areas.  It was interesting to see the square brewing station like the one at InlelliVenice reinterpreted in this space.  This cafe is very warm and inviting, I could definitely spend an afternoon there.

We hit up the Vivace sidewalk cafe and had drinks at the Brix cafe.  The cafe is very open with lots of seating as well as a “study” section separated from general seating by a glass door. Since this was my first time I ordered a macchiato and straight shot of espresso.  The macchiato super sweet and full of caramel was made with Vita and the espresso was balanced and chocolaty.  One of my favorite things when visiting new cafe is interacting with Baristas.  Brian our barista has been with Vivace since 1995 and is currently the head trainer, we talked a lot about espresso, the foam knife and misc cafe stuff.  The coffee coupled with a fantastic Barista made this an experience that will keep me coming back to Vivace.

Fully caffeinated and ready for more we headed to Stumptown on 12th.  This is also the location of their Seattle roasting facility.  We all ordered espresso, mine was sugar sweet had a slight floral quality and made my mouth happy.  Luckily we happened to stop by while the 3 o’clock cupping was going on.  The cuppings are held downstairs in the roastery/production area.  There is a cupping table with a window running along it that lets you see into the training lab.  The Costa Rica Helsar Reserva was amazing, it had nice raspberry and floral qualities, the body was syrupy and the finish sweet and clean.  When you walk through this roastery you can really tell they know what’s up, the facility was clean the lab tidy and production area well organised.

Our Seattle coffee crawl was a success!  We got together spoke of world domination and drank some really great coffee.  I thoroughly enjoyed every stop on our list and can’t wait till the next crawl.  Thank you Seattle!