Caffe Appassionato -- These Coffee Roasters Figured If They Can Make It Here, They Can Make It Anywhere

May 12, 1996

John Hinterberger

ONCE A DAY, sometime between noon and 1 p.m., a Gray Line tour bus rumbles up in front of an ordinary-looking former industrial site at 4001 21st Ave. W. - just up the hill from Fishermen's Terminal - stops, and discharges its passengers.

It's not much of a Seattle landmark; it used to be a marine engine shop. But outside there's a small little rim of pansies, a few green metal patio tables and overhead a dark green awning lettered:

Caffe Appassionato.

The tourists clamber out, walk inside, get a free cup of unusually good coffee and stare at the transparent exhaust chimney of an ancient (but refurbished) coffee roaster, where periodically a load of dark brown beans rattles up the plexiglass chute, pushed along by warm air, to an overhead duct that leads to a back room full of waiting gold-foil bags.

The tourists have heard all about Seattle's love affair with coffee. Now they've seen a real roaster in action.

Caffe Appassionato hopes its ascending beans will sweep the country. But, at present, they are willing to do it one bus load at a time. "Our goal," said executive vice president Tucker McHugh, "is not to have a store on every corner, but in selective neighborhoods: 350 stores in the next five years."

McHugh (he's the younger brother of Seattle restaurateur Mick McHugh) formed a partnership with Phil Sancken, a Seattle investments broker, in 1991.

Why start up a new coffee company in Seattle? The city and its

suburbs were already overrun with espresso carts, strip-mall coffee houses and brutally competitive, established roasters, such as Starbucks, Torrefazione Italia and SBC.

"This is like Napa," McHugh said. "What the Napa Valley is to wine, Seattle is to quality coffee. We figured if we could make it here, we could make it anywhere."

They've been grinding out and bagging (in inert nitrogen) their dream project ever since. The new roasting plant near Salmon Bay opened last August. The first shop was in the center of Magnolia. Later expansions were coffee bars in Crown Hill, Bellevue Square and Mill Creek. Perhaps more important, they established 30-variety racks of their retail packaged coffee (at about $9.50 a pound) in Larry's Markets and several QFCs.

The coffee began attracting a coterie about three years ago. But eyebrows were raised when Appassionato won a taste-off over other local makers with its newest blend, "Morning Passion," in February. The brand is named after, oddly enough, Beethoven and his Piano Sonata, Opus 57, No. 23 in F, the "Appassionata." Beethoven, like Voltaire, apparently never worked without several cups of coffee nearby.

The roaster and adjacent cafe have a nicely aged appearance. The roaster is a German-built Probat circular, gas-fired oven. It's 50 years old. Sancken and McHugh located it in Holland, brought it back, painted it deep green and had it completely rebuilt.

The cafe is cozy and inviting, anything but glitzy. The walls have grooved oak wainscoting stained a dark amber brown. The upper walls are covered over with old burlap coffee bags that have sporadic patches of swiped-on plaster overlayment.

"The last thing we wanted to be was trendy," McHugh said. "We wanted to create a classic, casual Euro-coffee house."

The food, an assortment of sandwiches, baguettes, pastries and focaccia-wrapped panini, is pleasant enough but hardly imposing. None of it is made on premise; it's provided by various caterers.

What is made on the spot is a selection of six freshly steeped "brews," coffees ready to pour from a half-dozen tavern-type pulls at the coffee bar.

Caffe Appassionata now makes 30 varieties of coffees from 11 different countries or regions (Celebes, Sumatra, Brazil, Guatemala, Kenya, Colombia, Hawaii, Mexico, Costa Rica, Ethiopia and Papua, New Guinea) and a score of blends therefrom. Included are four decaffeinated roasts, all rather mellow and low in acidity.

That last feature - low acidity - is a marketing feature that Caffe Appassionata sought for all of its blends.

"We wanted coffees that were easy on the stomach," McHugh said.

Sancken and McHugh believe they can tie their company's rising fortunes to an unfortunate aspect of the present American economy - corporate downsizing.

"As down-sizing becomes an increasing fact of life in America," McHugh said, "there is a wealth of talented people out there. We think that some of them will like the idea of working for themselves and opening a coffee house.

"Some of them will begin franchises. Other places we'll retain ownership."

The first three franchises have already opened in Boston. Gradually, they may fill the areas in between with folks from bus tours.

How to brew a perfect cup (non-espresso) of Caffe Appassionato? Dan Donohue, roastmaster, suggests:

Depending on the quality of your tap water, use filtered or bottled water if necessary.

Coffee-making machines aren't the best. Use either a plain cone filter (like Melita) or a French press (screen plunger).

Water temperature should be slightly less than boiling: 190 to 195 degrees.

Suit the grind to the type of coffee maker. Use a finer grind for the cone filter (because the water passes through only once - and briefly). Or a coarser grind for the French press. Infuse the coffee in a French press for precisely four minutes before depressing the plunger.

In both cases, moisten the grounds thoroughly before adding the rest of the hot water. With the French press, stir once before putting on the top.

John Hinterberger's restaurant and food columns appear in The Seattle Times in Sunday's Pacific Magazine and Thursday's Tempo. Barry Wong is a Times staff photographer.