"Seattle attitude is about the ability to enjoy life's little rituals, to value that little respite in the day when you spend half an hour taking a break with friends." But he is also a single- minded businessman, who seems not to notice that he has changed the subject from Seattle in general to his own company's ideals. "To marry that with friendly service in a clean environment, and good quality gourmet coffee, so that it is an affordable luxury. It doesn't need to be a Mercedes or a Porsche, it can be a really nice cup of coffee."The first Seattle Coffee Company store was housed in a listed building with no air conditioning in Covent Garden. The huge espresso machine generating heat in the back room made life difficult when it opened during the scorching summer of 1995.
Ally quit her job in publishing to work in the store full- time, while Scott remained deputy chief executive of a public health-care company, working alongside his wife in the evenings and at weekends. "I was dropping her off at 5.30 in the morning and then going to work, before returning in the evening for the close. We wondered if we had made a big mistake."By the end of that year they had opened another store on the second floor of a bookshop in Cambridge, and one at Canary Wharf in Lon-don's Docklands. Seattle was soon the name on a chain of stores, as it became obvious that Britain was developing its own coffee culture. Now he has his first major show in Britain, at the Photographers' Gallery in London, which includes for the first time much of his substantial body of uncommissioned personal work.His fashion photographs, for which he is still best known, speak of style, gesture and an intimate communication with people. He has shot fashion for Vogue, The Face and i-D and advertising campaigns in the verite style for fashion houses such as Jigsaw, Hugo Boss, Helmut Lang and Katharine Hamnett.
Robin Muir introduces Teller's retrospective BORN IN ERLANGEN, Germany, in 1964, Juergen Teller is in practice and in spirit a London photographer. Part of the photographic establishment - his work is held by, among others, the Victoria & Albert Museum - he is, whether he likes it or not, part of the fashion establishment too, photographed behind the scenes at the collections. He has been stills photographer for Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady and a photographer for the music industry. He is also an incisive - and unusually brutal - portraitist for Vogue (though kinder for other magazines). Most serve their coffees in three sizes - short, tall and grande - although the actual amount you get will differ wildly.Americano: espresso with steamed water.Con panna: espresso that's marked with whipped cream.Dry: served with extra foam.Harmless: skinny and no fun (see below).Latte: espresso shot, steamed milk, foamed milk.Macchiato: espresso marked with foamed milk.Mocha: espresso, chocolate syrup, steamed milk and whipped cream.No fun: decaffeinated coffee.Ristretto: smaller, more intense espresso.Skinny: skimmed milk.Wet: extra steamed milk.Wild: extra whipped cream.With Wings: to take away.. It is now over a decade since he gave up his apprenticeship as a bowmaker (he developed an allergy to sawdust) and came here to learn English and escape National Service. In his work for `Vogue', `i-D', Helmut Lang and Jigsaw, Juergen Teller has created a world of his own.
