Love Those Lattes -- In Coffeetown U.S.A., The Uptown Espresso Clears The Competition With Its `Velvet Froam'

Best latte: Uptown Espresso,

525 Queen Anne Ave. N., Seattle.

281-8669.

It starts with a solo smell. Rich, almost sweet, the unmistakable aroma that swells in puffs of steam as hot water hits roasted coffee beans.

Add to this the clatter and chatter of queued-up patrons shouting their latte orders: ``Double-tall, 2 percent.'' ``Single short decaf.'' And, from Bob Margolis: ``Gimme a harmless-foamless'' (tall decaf, nonfat milk, no foam).

Side into a seat and hand-hug the warm drink with its creamy white top and telltale ring of brown creme. Sip, and you're there - coffee nirvana.

The espresso experience!

The routine is repeated hundreds of times a day at the Uptown Espresso. Tucked in the busy block at the bottom of Queen Anne Hill, this is the home of Coffeetown's primo latte.

People who know me called me a coffee snob long before ``double-tall'' became a noun. I planted a Melitta setup and grinder near my desk and brought in a pound of Starbucks freshly roasted beans. On vacations I packed a grinder in one ski boot and a pound of Kenya beans in the other. Done right, coffee tastes good and feels good. I'm not willing to live without it.

Today Seattleites are addicted to espresso drinks. The town is peppered with espresso stands, and brimming with local roasters.

This city, like no other in the United States, has taken a common wake-up ritual and customized it to the max. No longer can you order a simple cup of coffee; you order a coffee drink listing all the individual parts to suit your taste. There's the double-tall, 2 percent, No. 2 foam (my favorite). That means 2 ounces or shots of espresso coffee, 10 ounces of steamed milk and about an inch and a half of foam on top. As people do, this custom ordering has taxed the coffee lexicon to bring us such orders as the Quad Jammer (4 shots of espresso) and the Yankee Dog, Americano (one shot of espresso with hot water and a bit of cream).

To focus my search, I hunted for the best latte and the best place to sip a latte. I stayed away from those that served coffee and food and coffee and dessert.

Recognizing the excellence of the Uptown product and experience was easy; getting to that point wasn't.

Because espresso drinks are so popular in Seattle and because this is America, where anybody can sell anything, there are plenty of bad lattes out there: cold, watery shots of espresso coffee topped

with burned milk or foam with the body of pop fizz.

Not only will you find none of that at the Uptown, you'll consistently sip a perfectly pulled shot of espresso topped with the Uptown's magical ``Velvet Foam.''

Right. We're talking thick as egg whites, a fresh-and-warm-not-too-hot perfect top to a perfect latte.

The manager at the Uptown, Keri D'Angelo, talks about constructing the perfect latte (espresso, steamed milk, foam optional) like an artist producing a made-to-order masterpiece. She starts with a coffee from a roaster in California called Gavina, grinds it, packs it and ``pulls'' from their machine a perfect near-ounce of espresso. (It's important not to let any watery drips in the shot.) From that moment, the espresso starts losing its full-bodied taste, so to prevent this cooling off she uses a warmed cup or glass, puts the steamed milk or foam on the coffee ASAP and gets that drink into the hands (mouth) of the customer pronto.

To individualize each latte (a single is $1.35), the Uptown has a foam chart picturing the level of foam (zero to cappuccino level, which is espresso and foam, no steamed milk) in the cup. The steamed milk is poured into the middle of the shot, making sure the creme (the soft brown top of the shot) rises in a neat circle around the outer rim of the glass. Preserving this brown rim means your first sip is coffee, not foam. In the middle goes the order of Velvet Foam.

So what's the secret to making Velvet Foam? D'Angelo rolls her eyes, shifts her weight and won't say, other than it takes love and attention. She admits that nothing else is added to the milk or to the process during the steaming.

The Uptown also has two other essentials in the coffee ritual: Friendly, fast (145 lattes during the morning rush hour) service, and a cozy comfortable place to sit and sip.

The Uptown is in one of those skinny storefronts that make you feel welcome after getting lost in the side streets of Florence or Sienna. It's just a few doors north of the Uptown Theater, right in the heart of the lower QA neighborhood. The regulars often stop between trips to the bank, the grocery store and post office.

The owners, Jack Kelly and Phil Groves, decorated the inside with faux marble walls, antique oak tables and one-of-a- kind character

lamps from Ruby Montana's retro collection. In ones and twos people read books or newspapers, talk shop or relationships. Look at the crowd and you'll see the demographic mix of Queen Anne's grab-bag neighborhood: yuppies on their way to work (some chatting on cellular phones), working stiffs with jobs at the Seattle Center or other businesses at the bottom of the hill. But there also are folks like Dolores and Tom Paul, who have been living on the hill for 30 years and get to the Uptown every weekday at 7:55 for two double-talls before Tom heads for his law office downtown.

Patrons here sing the praises of the Uptown's lattes and service, then go on and on about the latte makers, a rare group of coffee heads you suspect got lost on the way to open-mike night. One patron likes the way the music personalizes the place. Karl Renz, regular, iced latte, remembers the tape of old Patsy Cline music. Another afternoon it was the Blues Brothers.

Still, Uptown's success formula started with the coffee, specifically with the roasted beans. Indeed, owner Kelly tasted and rejected several blends from several roasters including the local ones, before finding Gavina Bros.' espresso roast. ``It's not just the roast, it's the beans,'' Kelly says, explaining that six different beans go into their blend. ``And it's not as dark as, say, the espresso blend at Starbucks.''

He says the medium blend with a medium roast is best because it has the richness and punch to stand up in a latte, and that's 60 percent of the Uptown's business. Kelly admits darker roasts are great for straight espresso (no milk).

Can Kelly shed any light on the clutch coffee has on this town? ``It's like everything else,'' he says, ``people here go for quality.'' They demand it in micro beers, fresh pasta, gourmet chocolate. And in the '70s Seattle had Starbucks and the Stewart Brothers to educate their palate about good coffee.

Gimme a double-tall, No. 2 foam.

Runners-up:

Harvard Espresso. 810 E. Roy on Capitol Hill across the street from Harvard Exit Theater, Seattle. 323-7598. Owners Michael J. Lyons and Everett K. Patterson import coffee from a roaster in Vancouver, B.C., called Coloiera (a family name). The shop draws from the eclectic Broadway/Cornish scene. Single latte: $1.30; $1.05 for students.

Torrefazione Italia. 320 Occidental Ave. S. Seattle. 624-5773. Torrefazione, in Italian, means ``place where coffee is roasted.'' And that's just what Umberto Bizzarri used to do in this shop; now he does his roasting in a warehouse location. This new, small darling of Seattle roasters offers strong and distinctive espresso drinks using its Perugia blend. A second shop is at 622 Olive Way, where year round they sell the ultimate in cold coffee drinks, the Granita: a slightly sweetened latte Slurpee, $2. Single latte $1.25.

Espresso Roma. 4201 University Way N.E., Seattle. 632-6001. Owner Sandy Boyd gets his French roast from Espresso Roma company in Berkeley. Its location makes it a major student hangout and the place is bigger than most. There's a second location at 202 Broadway E. 324-1866. Single latte, $1.40.