Outer Dark Coffee Lights Up its First Cafe in Tacoma

Inside the new Outer Dark Coffee shop in Tacoma, Washington. All images courtesy of Outer Dark.

A new coffee roasting company called Outer Dark Coffee founded by Seattle craft beer industry veteran Mike Murphy just opened a cafe in downtown Tacoma, Washington.

The 600-square-foot coffee shop with big windows and high ceilings brings to life the aesthetic of the roasting company’s retail packaging, with pops of canary yellow and squiggly line murals painted by Murphy popping against the black walls.

The co-founder of Holy Mountain Brewing and a painter of abstract art,  Murphy worked with Tacoma-based design agency Fosters Creative to flesh out his ideas for the Outer Dark brand. 

“The idea for the wavy lines kind of came out of the shapes from some of my paintings, which translated really well to a black-and-white, almost topographic, style,” Murphy told Daily Coffee News. “I’m also a space nerd who loves spending time with my telescope, so the wavy out-of-focus element of the design is also a loose reference to floating through the outer dark of space. It also looks a bit like smoke coming off a roaster, so that’s cool, too. I think they turned out to be a really fun and eye-catching element of the space.”

At the RoasterWorks shared roasting facility in nearby Auburn, Murphy roasts coffees for Outer Dark on an older Diedrich IR-12, based on profiles designed in his basement on an Aillio Bullet sample roaster.

Outer Dark has launched with two year-round blends, the espresso-oriented Form & Void and a “nostalgic dark roast” called The Feels. Focusing mainly on Fair Trade- and Organic-certified coffees from smallholder farms brought in by importers such as Ally Coffee and Sucafina, the company also plans to always offer at least a couple fruit-forward natural-process coffees, one honey-process option, and one “rustic, earthy” offering, according to Murphy. 

“My philosophy from the beer industry definitely carried over into coffee, in the sense that I purchase and roast coffee that I want to drink, and focus on what I think tastes good and fits with my lineup,” said Murphy. “At this point in my life, I have no capacity for pretension and ego around beverages, and simply want to roast really delicious coffee for my community.”

Murphy and his wife Tara Murphy moved together from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Seattle in 2008, at which time Mike started a series of jobs in breweries and distilleries. In 2014, Murphy and Colin Lenfesty co-founded Holy Mountain (a third founder departed within a year), growing it into the Seattle institution it is today. 

“We were super lucky to gain the respect around Seattle and the greater beer community as quickly as we did,” said Murphy. “It was an amazing experience and an exciting time to be part of the beer community.”

Ready for a change by 2020, the Murphys moved to Tacoma, and Mike ultimately decided to turn his roasting hobby into a professional pursuit. 

“The older I got, the less interested I became in beer, and I was also simultaneously tired of the way Seattle was changing,” said Murphy. “I was certainly itching to be more creative professionally and to pursue something more meaningful to me personally at this point in my life, and very naturally started a deep dive into the world of coffee and coffee roasting. Forming Outer Dark came from slow, steady, manageable steps.”

Outer Dark officially launched in January of this year with direct-to-consumer sales, wholesale and grocery sales. The brand’s coffees have also appeared for sale in a few local breweries, and it collaborated on coffee beer with Tacoma’s E9 Brewing.

“I still have so many close friends in the beer industry. It’s an industry that I’ll always be tied to in one way or another,” said Murphy. “I plan to do a lot of collaborations with friends’ breweries moving forward, mainly because it’s fun. There are a lot of similarities between the two crafts, but what I really like about coffee is the fact that it’s not impairing your faculties as you’re drinking it.”

Outer Dark Coffee is now open at 750 Market St. in downtown Tacoma. Tell DCN’s editors about your new coffee shop or roastery here. 

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