How the Pacific Northwest Became a Coffee Paradise | Eater Portland

"I trace modern American specialty coffee in part to the tiny Pike Place shop opened in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker, where the first sale—a pound of Sumatran beans for $5.36—was celebrated with a bottle of white wine and the business primarily sold beans, spices, and brewing gear. That original cafe (at 2000 Western Avenue) grew into an importing and roasting company, expanded to a half-dozen Seattle cafes by the late 1980s, and after being sold to Howard Schultz became the global juggernaut with more than 30,000 locations and a sprawling SoDo HQ; over the years this growth has produced a delicious tension with independent specialty coffee—from early partnerships and product buys to later copycat design cues and mass-market rollouts like cold brew and the flat white." - Jordan Michelman