4 Seasons Coffee Company PDF Print E-mail
Written by Alyssa Williams   

You don’t have to be a coffee lover to appreciate all of the nostalgia behind brewing a great cup of coffee.

When you walk through the doors of 4 Seasons Coffee Company, the wonderful aroma of roasting coffee beans surrounds you and you can’t help remembering the times you spent sipping coffee and reading the Sunday paper with your family or staying up all night cramming for college exams. Everyone has a story about coffee.


A great chapter of that story is being told by Tom and Leslie Hutchinson, owners of 4 Seasons Coffee Company in Spokane. In 1976, the couple brought their knowledge and passion of the coffee bean from the Bay Area of San Francisco and opened Eastern Washington’s first specialty coffee roaster and coffee house. Tom and Leslie were making amazing gourmet coffee before it was in vogue.
So how did these crazy kids end up in Spokane? It was pretty simple really.

“Tom had been working with a lifelong friend in his coffee roasting business,” remembers Leslie. “He learned a lot about importing coffee and what constitutes a really fine bean. It really spawned his own desire to get in to the coffee business.”
“We had three daughters, the youngest being seven months at the time,” she continues, “And we said if we don’t do this now, we never will.”
Tom’s other passion is weather. The Hutchinson house is filled with recording thermometers, rain gauges and the like. And because of this, he said he always wanted to live where there are four seasons. Since San Francisco wasn’t the place for that, they set out for Spokane. It wasn’t long before they found a tiny little spot on Wall St. where the STA station currently stands, and started roasting their quality beans.

The business gradually grew and Tom and Leslie made a real effort to be part of the Spokane community from the start.
“Spokane, in a lot of regards, is a very wide-open set of comfortable arms,” explains Leslie. “We wanted this to be our home, so we really made an effort to be involved.”
But she laughs about those early days, too.
“I’m sure that people just thought we were displaced hippies from Berkeley.”

Displaced or not, the business outgrew its first location and moved to a location on Howard St. Last September, they sold the retail portion of the business to the owners of Boo Radley’s, and now they concentrate solely on their wholesale business and getting much more involved in premium organic, Fair Trade coffees.
“Part of our goal,” says Leslie, “Is to recognize that the environment and health and well-being of the farmers that provide our coffee is what really allows us to provide a quality cup to you.”
One of the ways they are doing this is to buy quality, Fair Trade organic beans where a certain amount of money goes back to the farmers so they can elevate their own quality of life, be fair stewards of the land and therefore provide better quality beans.

“We’re just about to launch coffee over in the Main Market Cooperative, and to be a part of that is really exciting,” states Leslie. “It’s just another community effort in the circle.”
So where do the beans come from? Literally, from all over the world. From as far away as Ethiopia, Java, Sumatra, Kenya, the Pacific region, Central and South America, Kona. Too many to name. With Tom and Leslie’s expertise and commitment to excellence, you can be assured that the roasted beans you get from 4 Seasons are the very best.

At any one time you can make your coffee bean selection from more than 30 different varieties. This includes single origin blends such as Sumatra Mandheling or Java Estate. You can even buy custom blends like the Bloomsday Blend or the Palouse Blend.
“We even have a few private label blends that we do for local businesses,” says Leslie. “We do a wonderful blend for Huckleberry’s Natural Market.”
“All of our beans are roasted in small batches,” adds Tom as he pours a 40-pound tub of green beans in the roaster. “That ensures the most consistent and even roasting every time.”
Roasting coffee beans is absolutely both an art and a science.
And, speaking of science, if Leslie’s 103-year-old mother, Awilda Abraham, proves anything, drinking coffee might just be the answer to health and longevity. She starts her morning with two or three “large mugs” of coffee and swears she can’t live without it.

When asked if it has contributed to her overall health and long life, Awilda exclaims, “Well it certainly hasn’t hindered it!”
As you can well imagine, Tom and Leslie have seen a lot of changes to the coffee business over the last 34 years. It’s a lot more than the black cup of coffee that your grandparents drank.
“The consumer is so sophisticated these days,” Leslie says. “They know the difference between a specialty roasted coffee and a commercially-produced coffee.”
But even with all of the mochas, Frappuccinos, lattes and other candy bar drinks, at the root, you still have a cup of coffee. And like that little black dress, a great cup of coffee will never go out of style.
“Even in these tough economic times, people still want to start their day with a cup of coffee,” continues Leslie. “It’s an affordable luxury and a great way to spend time with your friends.”


4 Seasons Coffee Company, 10 South Grant Street, Spokane, www.4seasonscoffee.com, (509) 747-2315.