Seattle Coffee Tour

Barista Jacob hard at work.

Pike Place Market, near our tour starting place.

When I was a child, coffee occupied the same space in my mind as did alcohol. It just had a very adult aura about it. It smelled dark and cozy and everytime I asked my dad about his steaming mugful, he’d snatch it away from me say, “NOT FOR KIDS.”

I didn’t drink it regularly until after college, at which point it was regarded as fuel - something purely utilitarian, just a tool to get me through the day. It didn’t help that most of the habitual coffee drinkers I knew were the same way, putting away 3 cups of bland liquid every morning to stay focused and productive.

I moved to Seattle with little sense of local coffee history / culture other than a vague impression of the rise of Starbucks. But this city has a way of endearing you to its passions, and it was about time I filled in the gaps. This past weekend I took a downtown specialty coffee tour with Lucas, offered through Airbnb experiences.

Easily the best cold brew of my life.

Our friendly tour guide.

First coffee I’ve had that was made in a Hario V60.

Over about a 2-hour period, we walked to a few iconic spots and had surprisingly in-depth conversations about the role of coffee in our lives, the ethics of pricing, and even extraction curves (?) and particle size and how those elements affect the taste of what eventually ends up in a cup. Got a long way to go before I’m tossing glassware around and making fancy “slow bar” drinks in a Chemex like Seattle Coffee Works barista Jacob, but at the very least…maybe it’s time I got my old French press out of storage.

On Lake Crescent

The view departing from the dock.

At the start of the summer - mercifully before the worst of this year’s sweltering Seattle heat - my boyfriend and I took a weekend mini-cation up to Lake Crescent and stayed at the foot of Storm King. He took his bike up into the mountains one morning, and I impulse-boarded an hour-long boat tour to see this deep, glacial lake from angles I’d never been able to access before.

Ripples on a glassy surface, with a tiny tiny Lake Crescent Lodge in the distance.

This long exposure took me half a dozen tries to get exactly right.

Hurricane Ridge in Spring

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It’s a steep, guardrail-free drive to the top of Hurricane Ridge on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, so all spring my boyfriend & I watched road closure notices and the Ridge webcam to see when things would clear up enough for us to make the drive. And in May we eventually did - bringing a bike-laden Mustang with us.

Last time we were here together, we made the trip in a V6 rental Mustang…then a substitute for my boyfriends’s mirror-black, GT baby (above).

Walk walk fashion baby.

I bet the view from the visitor center is eerie at night.

Either I am a Disney princess or the deer are fearless here, because within 3 minutes of parking, this bold baby walked up and posed for photos before clip-clopping into the valley below and curling up in some shrubs.

Unintentional color coordination with a Penfield flannel.

There’s nothing out there quite like the cool blue tones & jagged peaks of Hurricane Ridge. And that crisp air! - wish I could bottle it up for a dreary Monday.