Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room - Seattle Grand Opening - December 5, 2014

(from the It's better when it's freshly roasted department)

Hi everyone,

Dana, Rose & I attended the grand opening of the first Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room.  I saw the announcement that this one of a kind Roastery was opening up on Capitol Hill in Seattle today, so, with the promise of lunch, I bundled the family in the car, and we went on down.

Located in an old car dealership building, the entrance is quite impressive:

Inside, there are no green aprons to be seen.  The Roastery uses a different color scheme - more like a khaki.  The place was packed - so Dana, Rose & I sat down at the Tom Douglas "Serious Pie" restaurant inside, and watched the people mill about:

After we placed our order for lunch - pizza, of course! - I walked around the space and snapped a few photos.  First up, the merchandise - those are custom glassybabies:

Down below is a classroom area and you can also see the large batch roaster just off to the right.  The large batch roaster is the main production line for Reserve coffee.  This coffee is not sold in-store, but is vacuum sealed, boxed up and shipped around the world:

There's also an upper coffee bar with pour over stations, clover machines and all sorts of other coffee makers.  Note the pipes sending coffee beans from the small batch reserve area of the roastery to the coffee bar:

Coffee holding tanks for the upper, small batch roaster:

Another shot of the large roaster down below.  You can just see the coffee library behind it - it's the large glass-walled room with the bags of coffee lining the walls:

The upper coffee bar, including the coffee bean pipes and the baristas with the khaki aprons:

I wandered over to get a closer look at the small batch roaster:

Here's a very quick clip of the small batch roaster in action:

And the finished product - ready to buy fresh from the roaster:

NOTE:  The master roaster at the large batch roaster downstairs recommended letting the small batch roast age at least 8 days before brewing.  It allows for the beans to out-gas properly and increases the flavor.

Finally - our pizza arrived.  In a word - YUM!

And that was our coffee roasting/pizza eating adventure.  We had a great time, and it was fun to talk coffee with everyone there.

If you're into coffee, I definitely recommend stopping by!

Cheers,
Paul