Tag Archives: Elm

Elm Coffee Roasters

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The Elm Coffee Roasters sign, hanging outside on a sunny Seattle day.Elm Coffee Roasters is a relatively new addition to Seattle’s excellent speciality coffee scene, having only opened in December 2014 and celebrating its six month anniversary not long before my visit in the summer of last year. On 2nd Avenue in downtown Seattle, it’s very close to King Street Station, which makes it the ideal spot to start your coffee tour of Seattle if arriving by train or bus. Which I did, Seattle being the last stop of my coast-to-coast journey that had started in Portland, Maine. And I didn’t go, because I forgot to check my phone and didn’t realise how close Elm was when I got off the train! And I’m still kicking myself even now, nine months later.

It’s not just that Elm is a beautiful, large, uncluttered sun-drenched space and an amazing location for a coffee shop. It’s also a roaster, with all the coffee being roasted in the Probat at the back of the store, in plain view for all to see. In that respect, it’s like Stoked Roasters + Coffeehouse in Hood River, or, for UK readers, Birmingham’s Quarter Horse Coffee. Best of all is a coffee menu that lets you try absolutely everything!

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Street Bean Coffee

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The A-board outside Street Bean Coffee on Seattle's 3rd Avenue, pointing the way inside.Coffee with a conscience, community coffee, social coffee; the list goes on. The idea that a coffee shop can do more than just serve good coffee seems to be taking off, with several social enterprise coffee shops springing up, with some London’s leading society enterprises being featured in Issue 15 of Caffeine Magazine. However, while in Seattle, I was lucky enough to visit Street Bean Coffee, a pioneer in this area which first opened its doors in 2009.

Sitting in the shadow of Seattle’s futuristic Space Needle on 3rd Avenue, Street Bean doesn’t wear its heart on its sleeve. Rather than relying on pricking your conscience, Street Bean is happy to stand up on its own two feet as a coffee shop, something it does very well. Street Bean is a multi-roaster shop, quite a rare thing in the US, offering single-origins and blends on espresso, a wide range of single-origin pour-overs and the obligatory bulk-brew (yet another single-origin option).

By the time you read this, Street Bean will also have starting roasting in the space next door, with initially a 1.5 kg roaster, which will be used for training. Check its website for more on what Street Bean does.

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