The Vashon Island Coffee Roasterie
If you keep on heading south on the highway past the bustling Bank Street of Vashon Island, you’ll soon come across one of the coolest little coffee shops around… The Vashon Island Coffee Roasterie. It’s a quaint stop along the way and like much of Vashon Island, makes sustainability and quality top priorities. At the heart of this roasterie is speciality coffee pioneer Jim Stewart and his Vashon Island Coffee Foundation.
In 1968, Jim founded the “Wet Whisker”, an ice cream and coffee shop in Coupeville, Washington and started roasting beans as Stewart Brothers Coffee, which was much later to become the better known Seattle’s Best Coffee. During this time, Jim travelled to small and large coffee growers all over the globe to meet the owners and workers in hopes of finding great beans raised by traditions that are good for both the land and the people of the region. In 1982 he founded the Vashon Island Coffee Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides help for small coffee growers, including disaster relief and financial aid. A percentage of every pound of coffee sold is set aside for the benefit of these coffee-farming families. For example, the Foundation in Santiago constructed a schoolhouse for 120 children, brought water to every home and most recently, built a small medical clinic.
SBC and Torrefazione merged to form Seattle Coffee Holdings and opened a single roasterie on Vashon Island in 1995. That roasterie was closed after Starbucks purchased the seattle coffee company in 2003.
The Vashon Island Coffee Roasterie is a working coffee shop, with a great tasting espresso and a wide variety of coffee beans… but it’s also a walk through the history of coffee. Antique coffee roasting and grinding equipment is on display in the 1914 storefront, the tasting room is open to the public. In addition the store sells all manner of loose teas and dried herbs.
