Northwest Coffee Craft

Love the Bean

Hand roasted coffee is perhaps the most recognizable icon of Pacific Northwest culture. It is represented well in Tacoma with wide variety, great character and very high quality options.  

On top of our 3 local champion
roasters, Valhalla, Bluebeard and
Madrona, you can also find quality examples of regional craft cups from 
Olympia, Portland and Seattle.  While here, just avoid the big boys - you have better options than that.

Tacoma's Coffee Culture in particular has a long, music-infused history that continues to this day.  In times past we enjoyed cafes like The Usual, Temple of the Bean, Grounds for Coffee and The Blackwater Cafe (all legends in their time).  Today we enjoy Valhalla, Bluebeard, The Broke Spoke and Corina, in large part due to the influence of Valhalla itself:  Tacoma’s first 'indi' class coffee roaster, Valhalla may well be considered the catalyst for our city’s great change in its taste of Bean.   

Words of Others: 
Post Defiance

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Valhalla Coffee Roasters - The Pioneer

Click Pic for Where Else to Find Valhalla

 
3918 6th Avenue  
Tacoma, WA 98406
(253) 761-5116  www.valhallacoffee.net
Mon - Fri 7am - 6pm
Sat & Sun 8a - 6pm




Bold body brew at its best, if you like your coffee strong, this is your place.  Tacoma's first independent roaster, Aj's craft is beautifully bold bean. Viking, Valkyrie, the Harrar and house espresso blends will rock your mind.
 
Words of Others
examiner.com

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Bluebeard Coffee Roasters - 3rd Wave

Bluebeard: Better Brew by the Bag

2201 6th Avenue
Tacoma, WA 98403
(253) 272-5600  www.bluebeardcoffee.com 




Nuanced with wide-ranging flavors and a continuously changing repertoire of options, discover something amazing in a pulled shot you won't need sugar to soften. This is good bean territory. 

Words of others:
Ben Smith on Bluebeard

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Madrona Coffee Roasters - Bohemian

I've not sat down with Charlie yet, but I drank his coffee all last Summer helping Trish and Thane Davis set up their Market on Market Street.  It's unique, and downtown Tacoma's only roast.  Try it at Smooth & Juicey.


Words of others:
Weekly Volcano

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We Do Tea, too . .

Healthful stimulation of mind and body, the calm, mindful experience you get and the better variety of experience available to you makes tea a profoundly beneficial way to expand your day to day habits in a way that will benefit your body, your mind and those you love around you.

There are teas with medicinal properties reputed to heal.  They've been used for millennia, were mankind's first pharmaceutical remedies, and are a good substitute for coffee when you require a bit of variety.  I use them often.

Mad Hat Tea Company                Downtown
1130 Commerce Street; Tacoma, WA 98402-4307
(253) 441-2111  http://www.madhattea.com/
Mon-Sat 10a-5p

There is nothing downtown quite like the Mad Hat.  A tea company, yes, but enchanted entryway into our town’s personable, accessible culture all the more, it is not possible for your senses to be bored here. 

Proprietors Tobin Ropes and Maureen McHugh create very different atmospheres - Tobin is more on the Mad side, Maureen a bit more Hat.  Together they bring about something you might expect in a rural suburb of a european  province - an open, creative atmosphere with supreme cordiality.  Depending who’s running the shop that day, expect two very different atmospheres, but always laughter, artists, good music and colorful conversation.

Together, Tobin and Maureen cultivate and provide a most unique environment in which to enjoy our city’s widest variety of hand selected, internationally-sourced teas and house-made herbal blends.  From rarer white teas to medicinal herbal remedies, the best Earl Grey this man's ever had, and more adventurous teas like Puerh and Oolongs, there is an endless variety of good tasting, restorative teas and herbs to enjoy. 

Strong advocates of the local Art culture, you’re just as likely to cross paths with a local artist as you are to run into a city council member or erudite Professor.  Expect the jovial, encounter a form of the divine.  

Words of others:
Ben Smith on Mad Hat

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