The coffee capital: full of beans in Seattle

To celebrate International Coffee Day - we visit the coffee-mad city.

Pike Place, which is home to the oldest Starbucks in existence. Photo by Rosemary Behan

“You’re not going to Starbucks are you?” says a man who strikes up a conversation at a seafood restaurant in Pike Place Market. “Not that it’s bad coffee – you just don’t have to give them your money.”

I don’t go to a Starbucks – that is, I don’t go inside one or drink any of their coffee while I’m here – because there’s no need. This is despite the fact that there are about 100 Starbucks outlets in downtown Seattle alone; the city has the highest ratio of Starbucks cafes per capita – about one for every 4,000 people – in the whole of the United States.

I’ve taken the Amtrak Cascades train route here from Portland, Oregon: a cheap and scenic three-hour trip, especially if it’s sunny and you sit on the left-hand-side for a close-up view of Puget Sound. I have a draught of Portland’s fabulous Stumptown coffee in hand – all the better to take in the sparkling panorama. In the protected areas we pass alongside, the water is so clear I can see to the bottom: families are fishing and swimming, and the hills are covered in green – an idyll, almost.

But despite its name and the abundance of seawater, the sea air, seagulls and its thriving seaport, and an airport code reading SEA, Seattle’s name has nothing to do with the sea. The city is named after Si’ahl, a native American chief, and that’s more or less how locals pronounce it today. This marks you out as a tourist very quickly. Yet despite being easier to pronounce, any mention of Starbucks also tends to invite eye-rolling from residents, because coffee aficionados look down on it, and the “original Starbucks” is something of a tourist trap. Despite its role in making this fairly small but fast-growing city world famous (along with Boeing, Microsoft, Expedia and Amazon, plus the music explosion of the early 1990s), Starbucks is now too big and homogenous – the coffee version of McDonald’s – and Seattle likes to see itself as cool and alternative; rad, even.

To set all this straight – and give us the jolt of our life – is Seattle’s Original Coffee Crawl, a three-hour walking tour. Its name reminds me of Seattle’s Best – a coffee company that’s now a subsidiary of that omnipresent chain. Our tour guide Val, a stand-up comedian (“my day job is really my night job”) from Cleveland, is determined not to let the S-word dominate. Val tells us that one of the reasons coffee houses are so abundant here is thanks to the city’s port, which gave local roasters importing the beans the ability to “cut out the middleman”, and the famously wet weather – “we need hot drinks for energy”.

We start at 10am at Fonté cafe (www.cafefonte.com) on First Avenue in downtown. The business sells coffee to clients including the Four Seasons, St Regis and Peninsula hotels, and its manager, Travis, who has that West Coast bearded geeky hipster look, loses no time in telling us all about the small farming cooperatives the company uses to source its beans. Out on the street – apparently the cafe is too busy inside – he pours us a single-origin Guatemala ("you pour this immediately – don't let it sit") as the group gathers round. I usually only drink cappuccino, finding black coffee too acidic, but Travis explains that "there are different types of acidity – this is lemony. The acidity makes you salivate, but this is like a brightness on your palate with a chocolatey finish." We add cream. One woman confesses she doesn't know how to use a French press – also known as a cafetière or a plunger. Travis explains that it's better suited to some types of coffee than others ("the contact with water brings out the full intensity; the ratio of coffee to water is really important."). He then elaborates on body, before it's time to move on. "Indonesian has a heavier body and Ethiopian is fruity. But body is like a bell curve..."

Down the road at one of Caffe Ladro's 14 outlets (www.caffeladro.com), we're welcomed (again, in an adjacent hallway) by Sarah, whose official job title is "coffee educator". This time we're having "pour-over Nicaragua" – which means the water is poured through a filter containing the coffee, so it's in contact with the water for a limited time. It has a similar appearance and consistency to Arabic coffee or tea (the company's tasting notes state "green tea, white grape, cane sugar"). It's pleasant, and we drink it without milk. Sarah says it's palatable because the beans – which come from within cherries – are pulled from the roaster "before the second crack". Sarah adds that it's best to drink coffee within 10 days of roasting, though "there are no set rules on how to make coffee, and even if there are, people tend to break them. Don't take what any coffee shop says as religion. Experiment – it's up to you. "

Next it's Caffé d'Arte (www.caffedarte.com), an Italian coffee shop on a corner that opened in 1985 – still the only one in town, although the company is also in Portland and Boise, and sells wholesale. Its medium dark roast is called Meaning of Life. "The darker you roast, the more you get bitterness," says Val, not revealing whether or not this carries a message – but the latte here is probably the most-liked shot so far. The company's other popular blend is Velletri, which is roasted in a wood oven dating from 1949; smoke imparts into the coffee like it would with smoked meats or cheese. After we've cleared up what a latte is (an espresso with steamed milk), the meaning of crema (the foam of an espresso, not cream), and where the espresso machine was invented (Italy; "it means fast, and you should drink it within a minute") – it's time to head to Starbucks.

Pike Place Market (www.pikeplacemarket.org), Val tells us, is the longest continually operating farmers' market in the US, and some sellers' plots are still assigned by daily lottery, lending added dynamism. For shopaholics, there are six floors of stores below the market. Despite being the most-visited place in the entire city, it's still a working centre with a great atmosphere. Pike Place itself – which has a row of permanent and mostly historic buildings on one side – boasts gourmet cafe-stores that specialise in cheese, truffles and olive oil, and is also home to the oldest Starbucks in existence, at number 1,912.

The surprisingly charming, low-key shopfront still boasts the original logo and non-corporate-style signage. A group of buskers is performing outside, and there’s a constant stream of people going in and out. Val explains that the very first Starbucks was a few streets away, but the building was demolished, and the cafe was relocated here in 1976. She explains how the name came from Moby Dick, that the company started in 1971 as a coffee-bean retailer rather than a cafe, and how that changed with Howard Schultz, who modelled the modern day chain on Peet’s Coffee & Tea from San Francisco. Val says that in Seattle, for all Starbucks’ success, it hasn’t affected the hundreds of independent roasteries. “They have brilliant marketing, consistency and efficiency, but there are a lot of people who wouldn’t be seen dead in a Starbucks, so it doesn’t hurt their business,” she says.

Our last stop is Ghost Alley Espresso (www.ghostalleyespresso.com), under an arch below the main market area. The building dates from 1907, when it was a bathroom attendants' room – now it's a gorgeous, almost miniature-sized one-off coffee shop that uses the high-tech Modbar system – allowing it to mimic any espresso machine in the world by changing the settings. We have a salted-nut latte, made with hazelnut syrup and salt. I don't usually go for syrups, but this is delicious.

It's testament to the quality of coffee that we've consumed that rather than feeling flat, I feel nicely wired for the day. I spend two hours in the Seattle Art Museum (www.seattleartmuseum.org) – mostly looking at its great collection of Native American art – and then do a circuit of the waterfront (beautiful views, and not-so-beautiful buildings), before another hour at the Seattle Antiques Market (www.seattleantiquesmarket) and the Metsker Maps shop (www.metskers.com).

"Coffee Is Life" reads the T-shirt of a woman who I pass as I walk back to the Ace Hotel (another Seattle first), physically if not mentally exhausted. There's a man in a spacesuit in the lobby, along with a long table and a computer. After a quick break for some carne asada tacos from Black Bottle (www.blackbottle.com) over the road, and thanks to all the coffee I've drunk, I sit down and write into the night.

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