Feel free to talk about anything Starbucks related in this thread.
At StarbucksStore.com, it caught my eye that they’re now selling Torrefazione Italia Coffee! They were a small Seattle business that Starbucks purchased over ten years ago. I remember going to the Seattle, Pioneer Square location now and then. They offer a very beautiful, high quality Italian coffee great for drip or a shot of espresso. I still see the brand now and then – though only as coffee offered through other businesses, such as the free coffee at Gene Juarez Salons. The Torrefazione Coffee may be part of the Starbucks Office Coffee program or other program for businesses only. In any case, I remember that Torrefazione was an amazing and enjoyable rich coffee. It’s great to have the chance to order it online! If you want to read about the history of Torrefazione Italia, this Seattle times article covers it fairly well.
I want to point out that the Starbucks Strawberry Lemonade Via Ready Brew is still available at StarbucksStore.com. Of all the Via Ready Brew Refreshers, this is by far my favorite. It’s not sold in Starbucks actual stores (yet) though I’ve heard it sells so well, it may be a summer item inside your neighborhood Starbucks store. You can also find the Strawberry Lemonade Via at your local grocery store. It’s the perfect balance of strawberry and sweetness. I know a number of my readers have tried it and loved it. It’s beginning to look like spring! Try this Via on a beautiful day with blue skies, a tall chilled glass, and lots of ice cubes.
It’s been all over the news that Starbucks will soon open a combination roastery, cafe, and Tom Douglas Serious Pie restaurant all under one roof. An older building that once housed Utrecht Art Supply in Seattle will be the home of the new Starbucks venture. I’m pretty excited. It’s extremely close to home for me. According to a blogger from Depotbanken für ETFs, it’s at Pike and Minor, (where Melrose meets Minor) technically in the Capitol Hill but that area is on the edge of Downtown and First Hill neighborhoods. The address should be 1124 Pike Street, since that was the old Utrecht Art Supply address. I walked by the other day and snapped a photo of the place under construction. There is a Seattle Times article about the new roastery/ Serious Pie pizza restaurant here. I’m a fan of Tom Douglas restaurants too. All of the Tom Douglas restaurants offer Starbucks coffee, and as you may recall, Starbucks developed Thanksgiving Blend coffee in partnership with Tom Douglas.
My website is finally running a little faster. Please share and tell others about this blog! I know that for a while it was very difficult to get it load, given the long hang times.
Talk about whatever you like that’s related to Starbucks.
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Tom Douglas pizza? It must be a northwest restaurant as I have never heard of it. Interesting move on SB part. Any idea how all this will work out under one roof? Glad this is an open thread. Finally tasted the teavana tea this morning. The green tea blend was just green tea with no hint of mint. Did some folks say their green tea from teavana had a hint of mint? Not here. The partner said it actually brews faster than tazo which surprised me. Nice taste.
Since I am not familiar with Tom Douglas Serious Pie I was at first excited because I was thinking of fine fruit and cream pies, the drool was starting. Somewhat of a letdown that it is pizza.
In the past year there have been 6 wood fired pizza places (3 different chains) built here with more on the way. Seems the Tri-Cities that is too remote for Bistro Boxes and Clover can be on the leading edge of the latest pizza fad.
I have not had any Torrefazione coffee for many years. What I do remember was a flavor that brought back memories of Naples Italy.
Now I consider this a good investment for Starbucks.
Dad Cooks I too thought at first it was a pie restaurant and thought wow that would make a great combination with SB. Too bad! I am not a pizza fan so still have a hard time seeing how these two things will match. Do you think it will be a better investment for SB than some of their other investments?
purple1 – well, I am not a financial advisor but I am highly opinionated 😉 . Unlike La Boulange, this is a local investment but a very good one for the neighborhood.
On MSI, hiding among the almond milk weeds, there have been some “ideas” for adding a roastery and that makes sense to me. On that part I am particularly pleased.
Now, on the pizza end, pizza is and always has been been a popular food. How well it pairs with coffee is dubious IMHO. However, it should attract the Millennials. I find it interesting that there was no mention of beer and wine, that is an absolute necessity.
I’m excited about the roastery! I can’t wait to visit again and see it first hand!!!
I just logged onto the Starbucks Store website today and saw the new Torrefazione coffee. Sounds exciting! I can’t wait to get to visit Seattle and go to that new store/restaurant/roastery!
I wasn’t a fan of the Strawberry Lemonade VIA, which is a shame because the Blended Strawberry Lemonade is my all-time favorite drink at Starbucks. Hopefully its fans will be happy in the coming weeks. ;~)
This is an interesting partnership. But I never think of coffee and pizza together. Melody, I hope you’ll be doing a tasting with the Zambia Reserve before it’s gone since they say the family is going in a different agricultural area and this is the last from the Terranova Estate.
i am so excited for this cafe!!!! i love tom douglas, and i love pizza, and of course i love starbucks, so this is pretty much my dream come true 😉
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I have to agree that the Strawberry Lemonade VIA is by far the best one. I bought it online last year and really enjoyed it. With the weather getting a bit warmer it’s almost time to start drinking the iced VIA’s as well again:-)
Wow so many new coffees! I still haven’t found the Spring blend yet! I think that venture with the pizza place is so intriguing, let us know when you try it!
one small comment: as a pizza purist (and also lover of good BOLD coffee), I gotta say: NEVER together. never. 😉
@DeniseR – The place will smell like pizza, not coffee. It’s two blocks from my house. I can’t wait!
@Chris – It’s amazing what a huge hit the strawberry lemonade via is! I think it sold way better than Starbucks expected.
@Hayley – Spring Blend is starting to pop up in grocery stores everywhere. I hope you find it soon.
I thought my blog was having some problem updating this front page. I’ve got someone who is going to do some work on it. But now it seems to be okay. I’m going to write nearly an article a day for a few days. I feel like I just need to be sure it’s working right.
If you are having weird problems with this blog, please email me, and tell me what kind of browser you use too. Thanks.
Woohoo! Excited to see that they are offering Torrefazione Italia in DECAF! Wish they would do the same for Anniversary, Thanksgiving, Tribute, etc… I always smell those bags when they come out – so wish I could drink them! Tribute smells absolutely incredible, and luv the artsy design on the bag that matches the gift card!
I do wish SB would use the Swiss-Water Decaf Process on all their decafs (instead of just Sumatra – the only one I believe that they don’t use the toxic methylene chloride or ethyl acetate method, which I understand they say is roasted away at high temps, but still…), and offer decaf on all their specialty coffees.
Strawberry & Creme Frappuccino would be excellent with pizza… nice alternative to the coke I usually have – right, my bad; but if you’re gonna pig-out on pizza might as well have your dessert and eat it too 🙂
@Sbuxgirl – Thank you for your commenting! I agree the Torrefazione is a great option for decaf drinkers!
@Hayley: pretty sure I saw the “Spring” blend at Targets….? but have not seen in any Sbux.
(I thought I posted a comment in this thread about pizza/coffee last nite but maybe somewhere else? don’t see it, but could be me! 😉
‘test’ ????? for me too.
@Denise – When the guy who worked on my blog fixed the problem of it taking 2 minutes to load (it timed out for most) it seemed like after that it wasn’t refreshing and updating new content regularly – including posts and comments. It’s been helpful for me to test how it’s refreshing new content to update a new article a day. Also, there were several days when the blog was nearly offline because of the hanging problem. My blog traffic went to close to nothing for several days in a row! It was a shocking drop – but nobody in the year 2014 is going to wait 2 minutes for a blog to load. These frequent posts are helping to bring back to life the blog. It’s rapidly getting back to where it was a month ago, just in the past two days.
I was so excited when I saw the Torrefazione Italia coffees on StarbucksStore.com! 10 years ago when I was living in Dallas I really enjoyed the espresso at Torrefazione Italia. I was a little bummed when Starbucks decided to close down those cafes. Torrefazione was a launching pad for quite a few big names in coffee. Todd Carmichael of La Colombe and “Dangerous Grounds” fame started off roasting for Starbucks and then moved on to retail operations for Torrefazione Italia. Eileen Hassi, owner of Ritual Coffee Roasters in San Francisco, came up through Torrefazione Italia as did Jeremy Tooker, owner of Four Barrel Coffee in San Francisco. I am happy to see that Starbucks isn’t retiring the brand.
Tom Douglas has been serving Starbucks coffee in his restaurants for well over 20 years. It’s great to see such a long-term partnership in this day and age of “Third Wave” roasters. Thanksgiving Blend is my single favorite Starbucks coffee so I am a big fan of the Tom Douglas/Starbucks partnership. I wonder if the two entities will develop a new blend that works with pizza. Before I went vegan I enjoyed Komodo Dragon Blend with pizza and there isn’t anything I don’t enjoy with iced coffee. I can see Sumatra pairing well with a white pizza with mushrooms, onions and herbs (even if I can’t eat it).
The new in-store roastery concept is very intriguing to me. I am actually planning to visit Seattle once it is up and running to see it firsthand. I am such a Starbucks nerd!
Is the Torrefazione only available in Seattle?
@Dottie – You can order them @the Starbucks Store online for home.
Let me first start off by saying I’m totally confused by what is going on with your blog? I found this by going through Facebook although it was there earlier and then just disappeared. I have some reading to catch up with I guess.
I saw the the Torrefazione Coffee for sale online at the Starbucks Store at least a week ago. I was thinking of dropping you an email asking about it back then, but figured I would wait to see if you might discuss it on your blog Melody. And you certainly did….. I was stunned to find you posted this on Friday, only to stumble upon it today by accident. It would be great to see these 3 coffees make an appearance at Clover locations in the future.
Since this is an open thread, I would also like to say (if it hasn’t already been discussed), that the new version of the Banana Nut and Pumpkin Bread are better than the recent original version and the mini loaves. If there is a replacement to the Marble and Lemon yet, I haven’t had or seen those yet. When I order the Banana or Pumpkin, asked that they give me them in the sealed plastic bag because they are moister.
@Chgo. – I’ve not seen any indication that they’re changing the marble loaf back to the sliced variety. I actually like the new one, especially warmed with the mini chocolate chips all melty 😀
my comments seem not to be showing up. ???? is it me?
@Denise – Your comments are right there. One thing that is happening (and I’ve got some one looking into this) is that nothing is refreshing normally. Click the refresh icon on your computer near the url. That should do it. But there is some delay with comments and content updating – all I can say is that I’m working on it.
@Melody – IMHO, you are doing better than MSI for far less money 😉
Just a thought and observation- has anyone else felt their SB store needs to be awakened? The promotion boards or lack thereof are so boring at least around here.