Long ago, in Seattle, there was a coffee company. No, don’t interrupt. I’m not talking about Starbucks. This is 1969, and the founder is not English teacher Jerry Baldwin, but another man, Jim Stewart, and the company, Stewart Brothers Coffee. Two years before Starbucks started selling whole beans and coffee machines (but not brewed coffee or espresso), Stewart Brothers Coffee had a coffeehouse.
It was coffee in those days. Not lattes, or cappuccinos, or fake-italiano faux coffee beverages (frappaccino anyone?). Coffee. Unpretentious, with cream or sugar. Yes, you could also get whole beans, roasted in their in-store converted peanut roaster (later replaced by a larger facility on beautiful Vashon Island, so they could sell coffee wholesale to restaurants and grocery stores).
Stewart Brothers put coffee into Seattle. So, it is with pride that The Drinkinator is reviewing Seattle’s Best Coffee. However it’s also with a tinge of sadness. Stewart Brothers is long gone. Mergers and acquisitions turned it into part of “Seattle Coffee Holdings”, which eventually got sold to a large multinational, which in 2002 got caught up in a big financial scandal. Result: What was by then known as the Seattle Coffee Company, was sold to Starbucks.
Starbucks closed the Vashon Island roaster (oh, for shame), and moved the roasting to its own Kirkland, WA facility. Kirkland. So drab. So suburban. Now, Russian Orthodox Monks roast coffee on Vashon. Sure, that’s good coffee, but I’m not reviewing it today.
“Enough history lesson, Dave,” you say, “How does Seattle’s Best Coffee taste?”
Like coffee. It tastes like coffee. It’s a cuppa. Joe. Java. Bean juice. Unadorned, it’s slightly bitter, somewhat acidic. No one’s writing home about it. It’s just good, basic coffee. “Best” is largely a matter of opinion, and as demonstrated in the history lesson above, this is a brand that’s completely lost its roots. It’s doesn’t have the Starbucks name on it, but alas, it’s now little more than another name for Starbucks.
