Last summer, when the butcher paper came off the windows at the former Starbucks in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, locals found a narrow little cafe called 15th Ave Coffee & Tea, serving espresso pulled from a manual La Marzocco machine by hipster baristas with a flair for latte art. Drip coffee is made cup by cup from small-batch-roasted beans brewed in an $11,000 ceramic-filtered Clover machine. The pastries come from the local Essential Baking Co. One wall is papered over with pages from Plato’s dialogues, and the chairs were salvaged and refurbished from other cafes. The communal table is made from weathered ship timbers, and even has a notch where the mast used to poke through. Every morning, there’s a “cupping,” a tasting of some of its more exotic brews.
With so much to admire at 15th Ave, it’s easy to miss the “Inspired by Starbucks” tagline stenciled on the front window–yep, the new cafe is still a Starbucks and it still serves coffee made from its ubiquitous beans (though there’s more variety and some extra TLC at 15th Ave). Full article.