Fonté Coffee Roaster’s First Seattle Coffee Bar Lands at Four Seasons Hotel Fonté Coffee Roaster is pleased to announce that it has opened its new café and wine bar at Four Seasons Hotel Seattle and will celebrate its official Grand Opening during Coffee Fest on Saturday, September 26th.  Located in a bustling part of downtown Seattle across the street from the Seattle Art Museum and just blocks from the Pike Place Market, Fonté has found the perfect place to showcase its first retail coffee bar in the Emerald City.   “We work with some very talented chefs such as Daniel Boulud and Alain Ducasse all around the country, but many Seattlites don’t even know who we are.  The bar will be a place where we can share our years of experience in roasting and where guests can sample the coffees we source from around the world,” says Odom. Fonté Coffee Roaster’s coffee bar is intended to be the showpiece of the company, sharing with Seattlites its super premium coffees prepared by master roaster Steve Smith, an industry veteran with more than 30 years roasting experience. Smith is intimately involved in creating the Fonté coffees and has been known to call the coffees his friends.  Securing micro lots of unique coffees from around the world from growers that others may not have access to, is also a specialty of his.  The bar will have Fonté’s usual fresh roast-to-order coffees, but will feature only the Special Selection series they currently offer online.  The Special Selection coffees are a grouping of Fonté ’s finest coffees, reflecting special sourcing or unique flavor profiles.  The goal is to offer a first class menu of the finest coffees available to Fonté. Each month, the roaster will select and feature the best single origin coffee available for that month, such as the really special Ethiopia Beloya #10.  And, each quarter, the café will highlight an unusual, expensive and hard to source coffee like that of Panama Esmerelda as an example, which retails at $80 per lb. if you can find it. The Fonté  bar will also be different than other coffee bars in Seattle in that it will have a beer and wine bar, similar to the coffee bars in Europe.  To enhance the whole wine experience, Odom is working with chef and owner of Crush Restaurant Jason Wilson to create an original limited food menu featuring seasonal fresh ingredients that will pair nicely with the wine list. “My ambition for Fonté Coffee Roaster’s new café and wine bar is to create a special place for visitors to enjoy an exceptional coffee experience.  It is also an opportunity to share our approach to pairing coffee and wine with various foods.” says Odom. Fonté  hired Tysan Dutta, previously sommelier and a manager for the Herb Farm in Woodinville, WA.  Her credentials include a diploma from Maitres-Cuisinières de France and Gold Medal of Honor from the French Master Chef Association Académie Culinaire. She has also served as a wine judge at events such as the Seattle Wine Awards and International Pinot Noir Celebration and many other events. The coffee company is betting that Dutta’s management experience and palate will be an advantage to the new bar in several ways. Her ability to educate customers in a friendly way on the different nuances of the selected coffees and wines will be a highlight.  Fonté has also been assembling a talented group of career baristas to serve guests. “Our people are very important to creating the kind of coffee experience we want customers to have.  Taking time out for a coffee is a simple pleasure that one should actually enjoy.  Hiring baristas who prepare the drinks with care is as important to that experience as the flavor of the coffee and the roasting,” says Odom. Odom believes that the attention to quality at every level for Fonté’s new coffee bar will bring forth a superior product and that will be the winning combination that will bring Seattlites back to the bar and back to the roots of specialty coffee in the city that made it famous.