The Merchant of Venice

When I was a kid my parents shopped in Bromley, a half hour drive from where we lived. The high street offered more than our local town, and pride and place in my memory is the coffee merchant who roasted beans in a revolving drum that dominated the shop window and filled the pavement with an intoxicating aroma.

My mum had a coffe percolator that would bubble comfortingly to itself in a corner of the kitchen but as an adolescent I found the pale beverage that she served a great disappointment in comparison to the smells that swirled around the shop where we bought the grains.

Later in my twenties, working for the first time in theatre I started to drink tea: rehearsals began and were repeatedly punctuated by the sound of the kettle, so it wasn’t until relatively late in life that I started to appreciate real coffee.

Today I buy my coffee fresh and espresso~ed from a monk like torrificator who runs a stall in the local market: he is deeply knowledgeable, patient and caring in preparation and offers a choice of coffee types, Kenyan, Ethiopian, Brazilian, Costa Rican and my own favourite an organic Mexican bean from Chiapas.

So, before setting off on a journey of several thousand miles to the city where Starbucks started and where the Starbuck density per square inch of the city is alarming I logged on to Delocator.com, an online service that allows you to type in any address and which will then suggest a number of alternative independent coffee shops in walking distance. I wrote down two addresses near the apartment where I would be staying.

Starbucks was in the news as I arrived as the company had just announced the closure of 800 outlets here in America. Someone immediately joked that half of them were on his street and it has lead to the Guardian newspaper in Britain starting a blog inviting contributions on the reason why the Starbucks experience had turned sour: some people spoke of overproduction, others of the complicated need to learn a second language to be able to order a drink and others of the competition from places like MacDonald’s. However the recurrent theme was about the use of the term coffee used to describe the milky syrup that they serve.

Two years ago when I came to Seattle for the first time I noticed a petrol station where the mechanic’s bay had been converted into a Starbucks, it now lies empty. I’m sure that the original Starbucks outlet in Pike Street market will in no way be under threat, it was packed when I passed even though it annoyingly has nowhere to sit and none of the comfy chairs, newspaper racks and folk working on their laptops that, more than coffee, have come to identify the brand. It seems a shame that what started as three friends passionately importing coffee to sell in the market has now become a corporate profit machine that now means there are drive thru versions in the city. Someone else joked that this proves that Starbucks finally has become a place for people who don’t like coffee, though I found an independent contradiction to this opinion up on Capitol Hill.

I arrived in Seattle at midday, it took an age to pass through immigration, agricultural checks and baggage claim, check and claim again so it was hardly surprising that I missed Krissie who was waiting to greet us. A taxi drive later and the jet lag, tiredness and emotional disappointment laid me low on a bed and I didn’t stand up again until the next morning.

I always like to start a visit to a new place with a walk around the immediate neighbourhood and thus at 6.30 I left the house with Minnie who had been awake since 4 and followed our impulses and whims along streets, through community parks and up and down steps and staircases until we were more or less lost and hungry.

And what did we see at the next corner?
One of the two coffee shops noted down…….. an Atlantic ocean away. Café Vita, 813 5th Ave N.
Merchant of coffee.