Washington State Beverage: Coffee

Washington designated coffee as its state beverage in 2011 through House Bill 1715, formally titled the 'official Washington state beverage act.' The legislature added coffee to the state's official symbols list in a single session.

Washington joins a short list of states with an official beverage. Most of those designations go to milk. Washington chose something different — a drink the state did not just consume but helped define for the rest of the country.

The bill's findings go beyond naming a popular drink. Lawmakers wrote that Washington is well known for its espresso culture — phrasing that treats the state's coffee identity as an established regional fact, not a marketing tagline. The same findings call the coffee industry a vital part of the Washington state economy, giving the designation a commercial rationale alongside the cultural one.

That combination — identity and commerce — is what separates this from a feel-good gesture. The legislature was naming a reality the state already lived, then making it official enough to use.

House Bill 1715 characterizes the designation as a promotional tool Washington businesses can use worldwide — unusual language for a state symbol law. Most beverage designations name a product and stop. Washington's goes further, stating a purpose: the symbol exists partly to drive commerce.

The law names coffee broadly — no roast, no brew method, no specific producer. From the specialty roasters of Seattle to the drive-through espresso stands that line the state's highways, the full industry is covered. The breadth is the point.

The designation is about coffee broadly — the beverage, the industry, and the culture — not about any single company. Starbucks did open its first store in Seattle in 1971, and it became one of the largest coffee companies in the world. But Washington's espresso identity did not begin and end with one chain.

The independent espresso stand became its own Pacific Northwest institution long before it spread elsewhere. Seattle's wholesale roasters, the regional café culture, and the walkup espresso window embedded into gas stations and strip malls across the state are all part of what the legislature was recognizing. Starbucks is a piece of that story. It is not the story.

Washington is the country's top producer of hops, a major wine-producing state, and home to a serious craft beer industry. None of those got the official beverage designation. Coffee did.

Wine and beer are regionally significant, but neither carries the same association with the state's public character — the espresso culture cited in the bill is something people across the country connect specifically to Washington in a way they do not connect Yakima Valley hops or Columbia Valley wine.

The beverage category was where lawmakers decided to plant the coffee flag. The full list of Washington state symbols has room for the apple, the orca, the western hemlock — coffee claimed the drink.