Before I continue with my summer of Scottish and Pacific Coast coffee, I really must complain about a place in Sheffield City Centre. I never expected to criticise a Caffé Nero, as the UK chain has proved to consistently deliver a well-made quality espresso. But on a recent pre-holiday evening I was passing by the Peace Gardens and felt in need of a caffeine pick-me-up. So I stopped into Caffé Nero, the same one at which I'd had a decent experience on two previous occasions.

But on this occasion I was shocked to see the young woman who served me pour my "double espresso macchiato" into a grande-sized takeaway cup. When I asked her why it was in such a massive cup she said they'd run out of the little ones. Did she mean both the espresso-sized cups and the cappuccino-sized cups? Well, I suppose anything's possible. But when I went to lift my "double macchiato" I nearly threw my shoulder out: the grande paper cup (16 ounces) was over half full, meaning there was a good 8 ounces of liquid. Now, how can one possibly make an 8-ounce drink out of two 1-ounce shots of espresso and a dollop of milk foam? As Caffé Nero prides itself on training its baristas, somebody should march this sad girl off into a refresher course, pronto!

And now it's back to the Pacific Coast for this month's review.

Last August I spent three weeks on the Pacific Coast, starting in Seattle near the top and ending up in Long Beach, California near the bottom. As Seattle, my favourite American city, was the starting point for my Double Shot Buzz columns, I was looking forward to my first 21st century visit. Sadly I was in the city for only 4 days, during which time I was busy loading my personal belongings from storage into a rental truck with the help of my friend Mistah Rick. On the first day of my visit before Rick arrived from the Bay Area, my friend Celia and I managed to visit two old friends: Caffé Vita on 5th Avenue North and Caffé D'Arte downtown.

On my last day before Rick and I started our road trip, we managed to find time for one new cafe. As we walked from Rick's cousin's house in Ballard up to the Department of Licensing in Greenwood, we stopped for breakfast at Herkimer Coffee, located across from the 74th Street Alehouse on Phinney Ridge. This part of town, located at the peak of the rising of the western shore of Green Lake, was named after Guy Phinney, a Nova Scotian who developed the estate that later became the award-winning Woodland Park Zoo, and he planted the formal rose garden directly adjacent. As we walked into the cafe on a sunny Friday morning, dogs were barking outside and the place, refreshingly away from the trendier parts of Seattle, was buzzing with locals. Our two cappuccinos were served in big brown cups, one with a nice ring rosette and the other served pure white. Made with Caffé Vita beans, they were very mild but quite pleasant, like good bedtime cappuccinos. Rick's breakfast was a muffin from Essential Bakery, and I had a pleasantly ample scone.

Opened in 2003, Herkimer Coffee roasts its beans daily and the coffees are available for retail and wholesale purchase online. The cafe offers free WiFi, and they have a second outlet in Ravenna. Although there is an award on the wall in the ladies' room for restoring the Greenwood/Phinney neighbourhood, Herkimer Coffee was inspired by the town of Herkimer, New York, where the owner grew up. The cafe's logo is the Old Trolley Bridge in Herkimer from a 1903 photo. The bridge, built by the wonderfully named Beckwith Quackenbush of Mohawk, was completed in 1903 to take riders between Utica and Little Falls, and was used until 1933.

After our breakfast it was onward and upward through our last day in Seattle. On Saturday morning we took off in our Budget truck down I-5 toward California. Some way past Tacoma we felt the need for our second coffee and breakfast of the morning, so we pulled off in Olympia, the capital of Washington State. Named after the Olympic Mountains to the northwest, this city has been the home of many famous people including cartoonists Matt Groening and Lynda Barry; musicians Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, Courtney Love, and Ricky Lee Jones; and comedian Michael Richards.

As we drove down Pacific Avenue we spotted the Perfect Cup drive-through and pulled in, relieved that our 16-foot truck cleared the overhang. The nice girl behind the counter asked if we wanted our short cappuccinos wet or dry, and then she asked us if we were moving. Dry, we replied, and in a manner of speaking we were moving, as my belongings in the truck were on their way to my mother's garage in California enroute to being shipped to England. And we along with my belongings were in the process of moving 1100 miles from Seattle to SoCal. So yes, definitely moving as opposed to stationary.

We pulled up a little beyond the drive-through to have our breakfast. My blueberry scone was a bit poached in its plastic wrapper which had imparted the texture of a muffin, and it was the first glazed scone I've ever had. Rick's muffin with its lemon filling was more like a lemon jelly doughnut. But the cappuccinos were done well and reasonably tasty, considering they were single dry cappuccinos served in 8 ounce paper cups. The only thing I could find on the Internet about Perfect Cup is the fact that it got a perfect report from a recent health inspection. You certainly can't complain about that.