A very Brief History of Seattle Coffee Why is Seattle known as a coffee town? And was Starbucks the first coffee empire to come out of Seattle? Nope!  Dan Davies & Co. is thought to be the very first coffee roasting business in Seattle, followed very quickly by Schwabacher Brothers & Co., but it was two brothers out of Boston, Edward and William Manning that would take Seattle coffee roasting to another level. The brothers moved to Seattle in 1908 and set up a booth in the on