Starbucks Coffee Has Its Historical Roots At Pike Place Seattle
If you visit Seattle and do not go to Pike Place it is something like being in Delhi and not to Chandni Chowk. The original Starbucks near Pike Place Market is most popular tourist attraction in Seattle. Many people visit this place to visit their Mecca of Coffee, the original Starbucks outlet which boasts to stay there from more than 100 years.
Before talking about Starbucks and coffee, we will briefly talk about how this area evolved. At the turn of the last century, the city was a rough and tumble place and rapidly growing. As the population of gold rushers, loggers, fishermen, shipbuilders and merchants grew, so did the demand for produce and goods from the city’s neighboring farms. In the decade of 1890-1900, Seattle’s population nearly doubled, growing from 42,000 to 80,000 citizens.
Farmers used to bring their veggie, fruit, milk, dairy, eggs and meat from nearby farming communities by horse drawn wagons and by ferry from the nearby islands. The goods were purchased by wholesalers, who sold the goods at a commission at warehouses on Western Avenue. In this system, farmers occasionally made a profit but increasingly only broke even or lost money. This reminds me the farmers of India these days.
In 1906-1907, the price of produce—onions namely—soared, leaving the farmers none the richer and the citizens angry over the price gouging. The uproar led one local official to try to find a solution. In the summer of 1907, City Councilman Thomas Revelle proposed to create a public market place where farmers and consumers could meet directly to sell and buy goods and thereby sidelining the wholesalers.
On the public market’s first day, August 17, 1907, crowds of shoppers seeking fresh produce and bargains descended upon the new marketplace. The first farmer sold out of produce within minutes. Within a week, 70 wagons were gathering daily to sell along the newly named Pike Place, a wooden roadway that connected First Street to Western Avenue.
The city simply loves coffee, it is interesting that coffee is not grown in the country, procured from far distant countries. The history provides the reason behind this. The visiting sailors, merchant travelers needed some stimulating and hot drink to keep them alert and active. The coffee came as a natural choice. Shops around the market place grew in number.
The first Starbucks outlet located here is housed in almost 100 year old shop . Starbucks Coffee fans love visiting chain’s original site, for them it is a fun experience considering the breadth of what the Starbucks empire has become. It's old, quaint, and feels a bit like stepping into a coffee shop time machine. Everyone who visits snaps pics, buys lots of "original Starbucks" swag, and they revel in the novelty of being in the birthplace of the world's most commercially successful coffee chain.
Except there's just one thing wrong: it's not the original Starbucks !
The first Starbucks was opened by an English teacher, a history teacher and a writer in a location a few blocks north of the highly trafficked "original" Starbucks. The three entrepreneurs were impressed by the dark roasted coffee offered by Peet's at the time and wanted to make their own in Seattle, so they started Starbucks as a coffee bean company. The store they first opened was on 2000 Western Avenue. It moved to its present location in Pike Place Market five years later. The original Starbucks is actually no longer at the location on 2000 Western Ave. When they moved it, they actually moved it. So there's a partial truth to the Pike Place location being the original Starbucks -- it was one of the first stores, but not the first.
The Pike Place Roast is known as one of Starbucks’ specialty roasts. It was created in 2008, it is a blend of dark beans, said to carry a bold flavor and a rich taste. The blend was created in order to celebrate the coffee company’s first location in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Starbucks achieved this specialty blend by: redefining the flavor of one of their older coffees, serving it in their original logo coffee cups exclusive to this blend, as well as having this logo on the Pike Place Roast packaging[. The company has further reintroduced some of their classics by choosing to create this specialty blend out of coffee beans supplied from some of their original coffee providers. This specialty blend was grown where coffee originated, in the Arab world.
The Pike Place Blend is said to be a “proprietary blend of Starbucks’s high-altitude Arabica beans" .The beans are a perfect example of a historically significant product because it created new lines of communication and contact between different societies. The coffee plant was originally founded in Ethiopia, but later spread to other bordering countries in the Arabian Peninsula such as Egypt and Yemen. The coffee plant could be grown in mild to hot temperatures, did not require large land clearings to produce, and did not require many tools to cultivate. The beans were originally picked off the plant and chewed. However, a technique for picking the beans when they were ripe and then boiling them to form a liquid substance, soon became the ideal. The spread to neighboring countries began a new chain of Islamic growers, working similarly to maintain this specialty product.
Ethiopian mystics and monks first used coffee beans in order to keep alert during evening prayer. Due to coffee’s strong stimulating abilities that did not impair people like alcohol was known to, coffee was quickly adopted by neighboring Arabian countries with similar religious purposes in mind . However, coffee soon became a popular drink for the common people, as it was later served at home, as well as in new social arrangements called coffeehouses. During the new age of exploration, many travelers and merchants were intrigued by the popularity of the drink within the vast Islamic world and were interested in introducing it to their own countries. The Arabian peoples realized the opportunities for producing this drink and were the first to cultivate coffee and trade it to other areas of the world such as Europe. At first, coffee was not seen to kindly by Western Europeans because of it was an "Islamic drink," but its popularity spread quite rapidly, and it soon had its own commonplace in European social society.
The Arabian world was unchallenged in the coffee trade up until the seventeenth century. Coffee created communities with numerous plantations, provided new jobs to different laborers, and soon became the outlet for social communities between intellects, businessmen, sailors, and merchants throughout the world, thus, creating permanent relationships between people Merchants would also frequently come to these plantations to buy directly from the growers. The coffee then would be transported, taken on ship, and sent to other regions of the world. European interests soon put much strain on the small Arabian coffee industry, thus expanding imperialism and creating new tensions between the African and European connections. As hard as countries in the Arab world tried to keep this plant exclusive to their countries to sell and trade, such as treating the beans before shipping them to sell, they were unable to keep up with Europe’s growing demands. Because of this, merchants started directing their attention to cheaper labor and larger suppliers. This would lead to some of the biggest migrations of labor, as well as colonization in places such as the Caribbean and South America. The coffee plant industry set a new stage for different contacts, whether they be on the individual level between owner to buyer, or large scale interactions across continents from mid-eastern society to western society. Like many coffee buyers, Starbucks still values the taste of an Arabian coffee, providing a taste found nowhere else.
Prior to the emergence of Starbucks in the specialty coffee market, the market was dominated by home-brews with the main companies being Nestle, Folgers and Maxwell House. A take-out coffee market was present but it did not consist of gourmet coffee. Although Starbucks did not introduce gourmet coffee to North America, it make it part of mainstream North American culture. It made terms common in Italy such ‘latte’ and ‘cappuccino’ common in North American culture. Starbucks effectively merged the Italian café coffee culture with the fast paced take-out North American culture creating a blended coffee culture. Many other chain stores followed suit offering specialty coffees as well, such as Mcdonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts. This was to participate in this new culture that Starbucks popularized. Due to the appeal of this new culture, the demand for high quality coffee beans rose. Starbucks desired to maintain a consistent cup of coffee regardless of the location visited. To do this Starbucks needs a consistent supply of premium bean, they source from coffee growers from various parts of globe. If you go to a Starbucks outlet, you will find many sub-brands. Sumatra comes from Sumatra, Kenya from Kenya, Guatemala from Guatemala. Some of the titled ones are different. Veranda is a blend of Centeral American coffees; Komodo Dragon is a blend of Indonesian; Aniversary is a blend of all three growing regions (Indonesia, Centeral/South America, and Africa). Starbucks gets all of their beans directly from the farms that grow them, helping to improve quality and make sure that the beans are ethically sourced.
Before talking about Starbucks and coffee, we will briefly talk about how this area evolved. At the turn of the last century, the city was a rough and tumble place and rapidly growing. As the population of gold rushers, loggers, fishermen, shipbuilders and merchants grew, so did the demand for produce and goods from the city’s neighboring farms. In the decade of 1890-1900, Seattle’s population nearly doubled, growing from 42,000 to 80,000 citizens.
Farmers used to bring their veggie, fruit, milk, dairy, eggs and meat from nearby farming communities by horse drawn wagons and by ferry from the nearby islands. The goods were purchased by wholesalers, who sold the goods at a commission at warehouses on Western Avenue. In this system, farmers occasionally made a profit but increasingly only broke even or lost money. This reminds me the farmers of India these days.
In 1906-1907, the price of produce—onions namely—soared, leaving the farmers none the richer and the citizens angry over the price gouging. The uproar led one local official to try to find a solution. In the summer of 1907, City Councilman Thomas Revelle proposed to create a public market place where farmers and consumers could meet directly to sell and buy goods and thereby sidelining the wholesalers.
On the public market’s first day, August 17, 1907, crowds of shoppers seeking fresh produce and bargains descended upon the new marketplace. The first farmer sold out of produce within minutes. Within a week, 70 wagons were gathering daily to sell along the newly named Pike Place, a wooden roadway that connected First Street to Western Avenue.
The city simply loves coffee, it is interesting that coffee is not grown in the country, procured from far distant countries. The history provides the reason behind this. The visiting sailors, merchant travelers needed some stimulating and hot drink to keep them alert and active. The coffee came as a natural choice. Shops around the market place grew in number.
The first Starbucks outlet located here is housed in almost 100 year old shop . Starbucks Coffee fans love visiting chain’s original site, for them it is a fun experience considering the breadth of what the Starbucks empire has become. It's old, quaint, and feels a bit like stepping into a coffee shop time machine. Everyone who visits snaps pics, buys lots of "original Starbucks" swag, and they revel in the novelty of being in the birthplace of the world's most commercially successful coffee chain.
Except there's just one thing wrong: it's not the original Starbucks !
The first Starbucks was opened by an English teacher, a history teacher and a writer in a location a few blocks north of the highly trafficked "original" Starbucks. The three entrepreneurs were impressed by the dark roasted coffee offered by Peet's at the time and wanted to make their own in Seattle, so they started Starbucks as a coffee bean company. The store they first opened was on 2000 Western Avenue. It moved to its present location in Pike Place Market five years later. The original Starbucks is actually no longer at the location on 2000 Western Ave. When they moved it, they actually moved it. So there's a partial truth to the Pike Place location being the original Starbucks -- it was one of the first stores, but not the first.
The Pike Place Roast is known as one of Starbucks’ specialty roasts. It was created in 2008, it is a blend of dark beans, said to carry a bold flavor and a rich taste. The blend was created in order to celebrate the coffee company’s first location in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Starbucks achieved this specialty blend by: redefining the flavor of one of their older coffees, serving it in their original logo coffee cups exclusive to this blend, as well as having this logo on the Pike Place Roast packaging[. The company has further reintroduced some of their classics by choosing to create this specialty blend out of coffee beans supplied from some of their original coffee providers. This specialty blend was grown where coffee originated, in the Arab world.
The Pike Place Blend is said to be a “proprietary blend of Starbucks’s high-altitude Arabica beans" .The beans are a perfect example of a historically significant product because it created new lines of communication and contact between different societies. The coffee plant was originally founded in Ethiopia, but later spread to other bordering countries in the Arabian Peninsula such as Egypt and Yemen. The coffee plant could be grown in mild to hot temperatures, did not require large land clearings to produce, and did not require many tools to cultivate. The beans were originally picked off the plant and chewed. However, a technique for picking the beans when they were ripe and then boiling them to form a liquid substance, soon became the ideal. The spread to neighboring countries began a new chain of Islamic growers, working similarly to maintain this specialty product.
Ethiopian mystics and monks first used coffee beans in order to keep alert during evening prayer. Due to coffee’s strong stimulating abilities that did not impair people like alcohol was known to, coffee was quickly adopted by neighboring Arabian countries with similar religious purposes in mind . However, coffee soon became a popular drink for the common people, as it was later served at home, as well as in new social arrangements called coffeehouses. During the new age of exploration, many travelers and merchants were intrigued by the popularity of the drink within the vast Islamic world and were interested in introducing it to their own countries. The Arabian peoples realized the opportunities for producing this drink and were the first to cultivate coffee and trade it to other areas of the world such as Europe. At first, coffee was not seen to kindly by Western Europeans because of it was an "Islamic drink," but its popularity spread quite rapidly, and it soon had its own commonplace in European social society.
The Arabian world was unchallenged in the coffee trade up until the seventeenth century. Coffee created communities with numerous plantations, provided new jobs to different laborers, and soon became the outlet for social communities between intellects, businessmen, sailors, and merchants throughout the world, thus, creating permanent relationships between people Merchants would also frequently come to these plantations to buy directly from the growers. The coffee then would be transported, taken on ship, and sent to other regions of the world. European interests soon put much strain on the small Arabian coffee industry, thus expanding imperialism and creating new tensions between the African and European connections. As hard as countries in the Arab world tried to keep this plant exclusive to their countries to sell and trade, such as treating the beans before shipping them to sell, they were unable to keep up with Europe’s growing demands. Because of this, merchants started directing their attention to cheaper labor and larger suppliers. This would lead to some of the biggest migrations of labor, as well as colonization in places such as the Caribbean and South America. The coffee plant industry set a new stage for different contacts, whether they be on the individual level between owner to buyer, or large scale interactions across continents from mid-eastern society to western society. Like many coffee buyers, Starbucks still values the taste of an Arabian coffee, providing a taste found nowhere else.
Prior to the emergence of Starbucks in the specialty coffee market, the market was dominated by home-brews with the main companies being Nestle, Folgers and Maxwell House. A take-out coffee market was present but it did not consist of gourmet coffee. Although Starbucks did not introduce gourmet coffee to North America, it make it part of mainstream North American culture. It made terms common in Italy such ‘latte’ and ‘cappuccino’ common in North American culture. Starbucks effectively merged the Italian café coffee culture with the fast paced take-out North American culture creating a blended coffee culture. Many other chain stores followed suit offering specialty coffees as well, such as Mcdonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts. This was to participate in this new culture that Starbucks popularized. Due to the appeal of this new culture, the demand for high quality coffee beans rose. Starbucks desired to maintain a consistent cup of coffee regardless of the location visited. To do this Starbucks needs a consistent supply of premium bean, they source from coffee growers from various parts of globe. If you go to a Starbucks outlet, you will find many sub-brands. Sumatra comes from Sumatra, Kenya from Kenya, Guatemala from Guatemala. Some of the titled ones are different. Veranda is a blend of Centeral American coffees; Komodo Dragon is a blend of Indonesian; Aniversary is a blend of all three growing regions (Indonesia, Centeral/South America, and Africa). Starbucks gets all of their beans directly from the farms that grow them, helping to improve quality and make sure that the beans are ethically sourced.
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