Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room in Seattle

San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, and Sydney – although miles apart – feel like mirror images. Even for someone as oblivious as me, if you blindfold me and drop me in the middle of one, I’d struggle to tell them apart. Maybe it’s the similarly bland buildings or the electric buses zipping around like they own the streets. Whatever the reason, they are incredibly alike. Among them, Seattle is just a quick two-hour flight from San Francisco, so I visited a few times while living there. Not that I knew anyone… but hey, I’ve always been good at entertaining myself solo. 🎒

Seattle, though part of the same US territory as San Francisco, has a vibe closer to Vancouver. Its outskirts lean more towards Sydney. When I lived there, Seattle was in the midst of a major city expansion, making it really inconvenient to walk around. Streets were often blocked, and buildings frequently had restricted access. I wonder if things have improved by now? 🤔

Personally, when Seattle comes to mind, I think of grunge bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. This place is like a shrine for alternative music. It’s been nearly 30 years since Kurt Cobain’s tragic end, a story from way back, but it’s still fresh in the locals’ memories. Countries with shorter histories like this tend to meticulously document every event, and Seattle is no exception. They might be compensating for the lack of long history with keen interest and pride. The EMP (Experience Music Project) Museum, proudly standing next to the Space Needle, preserving less than 50 years of music history, makes you think. After all, memorable pasts fuel future steps. 🎸

Another thing that springs to mind about Seattle is the movie ‘Late Autumn’ starring Hyun Bin and Tang Wei. Its lingering melancholic vibe left a mark, and Seattle’s ambiance played a significant part in that. 🎥

But today, I want to talk about another Seattle icon: Starbucks. While its stores are widespread globally, they’re especially common in Seoul—practically on every block. Seattle, being home to Starbucks’ first store, naturally has them at every corner too (Seoul, you’re the odd one out). In this city, Starbucks opened the ‘Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room’. ☕

To put it simply, it’s like buying a plush toy at a doll factory. Here, you can witness the entire process of transforming beans into coffee while enjoying a cup. Watching beans twirl in large machines, then suddenly cascade down pipes into other machines, resets any peaceful notion of coffee production you had. No idyllic scenes of coffee being leisurely sun-dried on a farm here. If their goal is to overwhelm visitors with the coffee-making process, they’ve nailed it. While it didn’t match the awe of seeing molten metal poured in a steel mill, it was impressive in its own right. 😮

Order a coffee, and the baristas at the end of the bar prepare it in front of you, explaining each step. The variety here is incomparable to a regular Starbucks. With my limited coffee knowledge, I could barely distinguish a ‘tangy’ note, but others kept exclaiming ‘Wonderful’ and ‘Awesome’, so there must be a difference. Perhaps they felt they had to be ‘Awesome’ because they were here. I’ve learned not to fully trust foreign expressions of wonder. But I do hope many visit, as closing such a large operation would impact the local economy. 🤞

There’s a library in a corner displaying coffee-related books and a place to buy souvenirs, creating a gift shop-like atmosphere. Even someone uninterested in shopping like me found myself picking up espresso cups. If shopping is your hobby, tread carefully. 🛍️

Some might wonder, ‘Recommending a coffee shop like it’s a museum?’ but confidently, I recommend the ‘Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room’. 💫

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