After visiting lovely "Ballard Coffee Works", the question comes up: Is there any choice than visiting Seattle Coffee Works?"
So, here is Seattle Coffee Works in downtown Seattle, near Pike place market.
The cafe is located on Pike St., between 2nd and 1st Ave. Since brief history of Seattle Coffee Works has been covered in Ballard Coffee Works post, This post focuses on introducing Seattle Coffee Works.
Although Seattle Coffee Works has limited space, you may notice their unique floor layout once step in a cafe. They divided the space into 3 sections: espresso bar on the left, brew bar on the right and roasting room through the door . Brew bar is hidden behind roasted/packaged beans shelf and kind of separated by a hip high swing door from the lest of cafe space.
With the order of Soy latte, Latte art came out as angel with a heart shaped head. In San Francisco, Ballistas often says SOY has less capability to bring silky and creamy texture form to last long, so that they prefer/switched Almond Milk, which bottle shapes like a 18c woman. However, "the almond milk movement" seems like hasn't affects Seattle Coffee here yet.
Soy Latte at Seattle Coffee Works came with silky and milky creamy soy form stays until 16oz cup became empty. Compared with Ballard Coffee works, drink was soft, creamy and comforting.
Maybe, it was just because out side was heavy rain.
Maybe, I was soaking wet.
Environmental-wise, Ballard Coffee Works has more "handy" and "stay-as-long-as-you can stay".
Considering the location, in the middle of Seattle downtown very close to Pike Place Market, Seattle Coffee Works cafe has considerably friendly atmosphere for both locals and tourists.
Since their name was mentioned, here is L.A.'s one of the most popular, the highest media exposure coffee roaster, Intelligentsia, known as "big-three" of third wave coffee in the United States.
Maybe, there is nothing to say about them, but here is brief overview about who they are just for reminder.
Dated back in 1995, Doug Zell and Emily Mange left San Francisco, a sanctuary for third wave coffee, to plant a seed of their dream coffee roaster. The idea of Intelligentsia sprouted and rooted in Chicago, where they opens the very first roastery to bring freshly roasted coffee beans to their own. After they bloomed in Chicago, Intelligentsia planted a seed in L.A., then in NYC, and now in SF, the city where picked up the seed.
Although they have more coffee house in Chicago than any other location, 7 in Chicago and 3 each in L.A. and NYC for now, somewhat L.A. has more media exposure than any others. Is this because so called "Specialty coffee movement" has more active and influence on West Coast? Maybe so.
Although all of their coffee bars has significant meanings to Intelligentsia, here is the one in Santa Monica, where celebrities and money actively flows.
Located on Abbot Kinney Blvd., the cutting-edge/sophisticated area ranked with Robertson Blvd. and Melrose Ave., Venice Coffeebar shows its creativity emerged by corroboration with sophisticated L.A. architectural design. The coffeebar hides itself in inside of old brick made building on almost end of Abbot Kinney shopping area. The building appears historical, but inside of the building is nothing historical. As you walk along a short shaded approach to the door, you will find a modern metallic interior merged into natural woody warmness.
Seating area are arranged like a stadium: the stairs of bench seats are located by the window at the end looking down the espresso bar area.
To be honest, all baristas appears in training, not fully professional enough to be at the championships. Not only my cup but also other cups I watch did not appear fancy enough. My usual choice "Soy Latte" was served as it shown, and creaminess of formed soy milk was far away from San Francisco quality.
Maybe, this happened just because timing wasn't right.
Maybe, my expectation was too high.
Whenever I visit roasteries, I focus to read how much they enjoy "Coffee" and how strong they have the faith in their business. Sometimes it is better to just simply visit their original location to observe and find out how they are.
