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In the Bay I often do a “coffee crawl” where I (and sometimes others) spend a few hours checking out different coffee shops, drinking new coffees, exploring recently opened venues and kicking about. I had some flight vouchers from a holiday earlier this year and decided to do a weekend-long coffee crawl in Portland, OR. What happened this weekend was nothing short of incredible and I spent Saturday and Sunday way over caffeinated, but treated to wonderful coffee, beautiful spaces and the best service I’d ever had. I could write a novel, but instead what follows are some highlights. *
Clive Coffee - I caught wind of their latest dripper stand just before my trip, but thinking it was mostly a warehouse for hardware I didn't have plans to stop by. While headed to Coava I saw their door and popped in. What a good time that was! I was asking about a device there and treated to a very nice Guatemala Chimaltenango Retiro de Quisaya as a demo. This was the most memorable brewed coffee I had during the trip for sure, and they also gave me some good info to other spots in town.
Barista NE - I only had Barista NW on my list, but several people had been telling me that the two shops were "a whole different animal, and the one on Alberta is worth seeing." So I hustled back to the hotel and then jumped a bus up to NE to try and catch these folks before closing time. I paid the price later, but this stop alone was super illuminating. Amazing espresso (and local beer) selection, I had a Press Pot of Intelli's Yirgacheffe, but was enticed by all the SO espresso available. The barista there treated me super well with espresso, and gave me some great leads on shops I didn't have on my list. Later I realized the whole time I was talking to Billy Wilson and felt like an idiot. Because of his recommendations I had an awesome Sunday as well.
Sterling Coffee Roasters - Go here. I probably could have spent all weekend here and they don't even have seats! If you want to see what you can do with a tiny built-in kiosk and a boat load of passion, visit and have your mind blown.
What stood out: Service. If you ask any of my friends, none of them are likely to describe me as anything remotely close to "overly friendly" or "exuding smiles". I am personable, but I'm usually dependant on another party to bring out the better in me. This is one of the reasons that I was so stoked on customer service in Portland. I spent two days there using hotels, eating in restaurants, and drinking exorbitant amounts of coffee and every single person I interacted with made my day that much better. I spent some time talking with several folks working at coffee shops, speculating on why I find other places in my area so hit or miss. We guessed at cost of living differences, established coffee history and other things. I don't know anyone who aspires to work in places like the hotel industry, and yet everyone I talked to was friendly off the bat, so my whole "passion for the craft" thing doesn't necessarily apply outside the world of coffee. Another possible explanation is that I was attributing my excitement about travelling there in the first place to other people and making the whole thing up, but I am not convinced that's the case. The bottom line is, I got the best service I've had in awhile from Portland and that makes me happy. All that in addition to stellar coffee.
Thank you Portland, you were too kind.
*Unfortunately I didn’t see a whole bunch of shops that I really would have liked too. There just aren’t enough hours in a day. By the time I got back to the airport on Sunday I had visited heart roasters, Stumptown on Belmont, Clive, Coava, Barista NE, Coffeehouse Northwest, Sterling Coffee Roasters, Barista NW and Public Domain and probably consumed enough coffee to kill a small child. Every single one was wonderful and if you want the breakdown on any place feel free to get in touch. Summarized because nobody wants to read that much.
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If any of you know me personally, you know that my two biggest obsessions are coffee and clay. Luckily for me, it's an intersection easily achieved. I make a ton of mugs and use them multiple times daily. Just today I caught a post from Michael Mahan about a Chemex-like carafe he made to accept filters.
Sometimes you wonder why your brain never came up with that idea. It's genius in it's simplicity.
The problem (and beauty) with hand thrown clay is that each piece is different and using a paper filter might result in some wide swings in success between pots. My proposed solution: The Coava KONE.
The rigid stainless filter would even out the consistency pretty well and also offer you a totally reusable setup. The only two downsides to this setup: 1. If you're looking for it to taste like a cup through a Chemex filter, it will not. Read up on the KONE for taste profiles. and 2. It stands to be a very expensive setup. But you'll have a very unique brewing device, and a sweet handmade piece of pottery.
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Just had a pretty cool weekend and wanted to get some notes on paper so I don't forget about it. We got a car a month or so ago and have been doing some local CA road trips with it and this weekend we took it up to Chico/Sacramento.
After mindlessly cruising up 5 we got to Chico and I immediately set out in search of coffee. We got to Empire Coffee first. I REALLY liked the fact that it was set in an old train car. Character right out of the gate. A friendly barista served me a traditional, if not large, espresso that was very nice. Maybe it was just the fact that it's a hot summer day at an odd time (2pm), but I really wished I saw more people come through there. Nice place!
We then walked back downtown and stopped at Naked Lounge. I wasn't sure what to expect here, but was fairly impressed. They advertise double ristretto as the default, and true to their word that's what was delivered. I didn't mind the shot, but the barista stopped by later and asked about the shot quality. That was a first so far in my travels and was neat.
Getting sidetracked by beer, we made a quick stop over to Sierra Nevada Brewing. I haven't been in many years, but was totally blown away by the progress Ken and Co are making. Estate hops, solar arrays and both Methane and CO2 reclamation. These guys are doing amazing things both beer related and not.
Heading out of town we stopped at the Colusa-Sacramento River SRA for the night where our site was confused with an RV spot. We pitched our tiny 2-person tent and my bro-in-laws giant tent in a tiny little grass spot next to the road. Hilarious, but needless to say we slept like crap.
Today was a caffeine fueled whirlwind cruising through Sacramento. We were a bit behind "schedule" but I still managed to drink too much coffee even though I had to miss stopping at Chocolate Fish this time.
First stop was Bloom Coffee and Tea in Roseville. This trip was even better than my first time there. Another great SO shot, this time from Ecco. This is another place I wish I would see more traffic through, but again, maybe just my strange timing.
Shooting down the freeway we got to downtown Sac and I went to Temple's mid-town location on S and 28th. Again, my second trip (though the first time was downtown) was even better than the first. I had a Brazilian SO espresso, which seemed to be pulled well, but maybe a little roasty. Their customer service was super friendly today and I had a great experience.
Finally, stopped at Naked Coffee's midtown location. Naked talks up a bit on their website, but I was fairly underwhelmed with the shop on 15th and Q. Long story short, very friendly workers, not such a great espresso. I'll give them another try at some point.
Total novel. Big things coming up including a return to pottery next week.
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I majored in psychology in college, and some of the last courses I took revolved around statistics, data reporting and interpretation of reported data. This has led to a part-time obsession with my own personal data and finding latent ways of collecting it. I’m an avid user of last.fm, have used mint.com and it’s amazing what sort of interesting insights can be found. Inspired in part by this obsession, but most recently by James Hoffmann, I wrote down my coffee consumption for February. If only because it seemed fun, and I have nothing better to do than write these things down.
As you already know, I am not a coffee professional in any way, and the coffee results themselves are not very exciting. I used similar recording parameters to Mr. Hoffmann, which appear in his post. In total, I drank 44 coffee beverages throughout the month, which at 28 days averages to just over 1.5 beverages per day. Staying true to the European in me, these beverages were at most 8oz, but more likely in the 6oz range.
;)
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