Review: Seattle Coffee Crawl

Last weekend I went on the Seattle Coffee Crawl, a walking coffee-themed tour in downtown Seattle. I first heard about the coffee tour in the Seattle Times. It seemed like a new, fun thing to do with visitors. The tour involved coffee tasting, and the usual toury humor and history. Overall it was quite enjoyable. I recommend the tour for anyone interested visiting Seattle and wants to learn a bit more about the history of the coffee culture.

For me, the highlight of the tour was the two opportunities for coffee tasting. In total, I tasted five different single source coffees. The first three tastings were performed at Seattle Coffee Works, the second two tastings featured the Clover coffee maker at Trabant. Overall, I was not terribly impressed with the Clover--I prefer the french press (more or that later).

It was striking to me how different the taste of the coffees from around the world were. In particular, the two African coffees I tasted (both from Ethiopia), were incredibly light (weak?) and almost flowery. Someone else on the tour described one as tasting more like a strong tea than coffee--a sentiment I second. Coffee tasting was surprsingly fun, and is something I'd like to do again.