Each half-dozen batch of scones is individually prepared from premium all-natural ingredients and mixed with nothing more than a fork before being shaped, cut and baked at our cafe in Kingston.

Stop by and taste the difference!

Starting August 26th and running through September 2nd, if you Check-In to Cuppa Bella on your Facebook enabled phone and tag a friend with you, you can get their drink free with our Buy Yours, Get Theirs Free Facebook Deal.

We feature the following scones:

Cranberry Orange, Lemon Blueberry, Chocolate Chip, Cherry Almond and Bacon Cheddar with Basil.

Stop by today and try one with our own whipped cream cheese.  Featured here is our Pesto and Sundried Tomato and our Caffè Mocha.

Passionately crafted in our cafe.  Enjoy every mouthwatering bite with a hand-crafted Caffè Lungo.

The answer is fairly simple.  Quality, consistency, location and history.

Quality – We are dedicated to providing the highest quality coffee to our customers at a price considerably lower than what you would find at other large national chain espresso cafès.  We have found that we were having considerable trouble receiving quality beans from Torrefazione Italia, many times the bags of coffee, when opened, had been crushed or broken open completely inside the shipping package.  When we would call about these issues, our concerns often fell on deaf ears.

Caffè Umbria delivers quality beans that are shipped to us in proper packaging and any time we have trouble, they are a simple local phone call or email away from resolving any problem we have.

Consistency – Much like the quality issue above, our Barista’s found that from bag to bag that we ground for espresso, the roasting consistency of the espresso blend we used was different from the previous bag we ground, so much so that from bag to bag, the Barista would have to make huge changes to the way the shots were extracted.  We ended up using up nearly 1/4 of our beans just on adjustment from bag to bag to get the shots right.  That ended up being 15-20 pounds of beans lost, per week and sometimes, no matter what we did, the shots just pulled poorly.

Caffè Umbria delivers consistency in their roasts each and every time and their blends are handled by a third-generation roaster that is beyond reproach.

Location – Many folks didn’t know that Torrefazione Italia was no longer roasted in Seattle, it came from back east and when there was inclimate weather, we couldn’t receive delivery of beans.

Caffè Umbria is roasted in Seattle, WA.

History – Here’s the story most folks don’t know…  Umberto Bizzari founded Torrefazione Italia in 1986 in Seattle, WA.  He brought with him the roasting traditions of his father, Ornello Bizzarri, when he came to the States from Italy.  In the late 1980s, Umberto teamed up with Stewart Brother’s Coffee (later named Seattle’s Best Coffee) founder, Jim Stewart to form Seattle Coffee Holdings.  This new company created a modern roasterie on Vashon Island in 1995 where they roasted both Seattle’s Best and Torrefazione Italia.

Seattle Coffee Holdings was purchased in 1998 by AFC Enterprises and renamed Seattle Coffee Company.  AFC, through Seattle Coffee Company, expanded Torrefazione Italia into other markets like Vancouver BC, the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland, Boston, Chicago, and Dallas through company owned retail cafès.  They also wholesaled to restaurants, hotels, bakeries and cafés, like Cuppa Bella.

Starbucks purchased Torrefazione Italia along with Seattle’s Best Coffee in 2003 from AFC Enterprises.  In 2005, Starbucks announced that all 17 Torrefazione Italia cafés would be closed before the end of the year.  The wholesale coffee brand was retained but was expanded to be sold in grocery stores.  Torrefazione Italia became another sub-brand of Starbucks that was produced for the masses and sold right next to Folgers Crystals in your local grocery store.

In 2002, Umberto’s son, Emanuele Bizzarri founded Caffè Umbria.  In 2005 when Starbucks announced the closure of all Torrefazione Italia cafès, Emanuele opened up a Caffè Umbria cafè in the same location as the original Torrefazione Italia cafè at 320 Occidental Ave in Pioneer Square.

In our opinion, Caffè Umbria is what Torrefazione Italia used to be and because of the ownership of Torrefazione Italia, we did not feel right serving what is essentially Starbucks coffee to our customers who come to us for a big reason.

We’re not Starbucks.

Caffè Umbria delivers a consistent, quality bean that is roasted right in Seattle.  They have no dreams of being a global coffee powerhouse and provide service and training to their customers that is unmatched by any other roaster.  We are proud to be serving Caffè Umbria and we hope that you will notice the reason why we made the move with every sip you take.

When they are gone, they are gone

Come on in and get your 20 ounce Americano (with room), FREE, for the entire week!

These are famous around Kingston and as always, they are made right here in our Kingston cafe.  We slow cook our pork for 18 hours in our signature Adobo and then add our own chipotle sauce to spice it up a bit!