Day #2 - first cup of coffee is within walking distance, Extracto Coffee House proves to be a neighborhood gem. Awesome sweet and buttery espresso off a very beautiful and very blue La Marzocco. Also the first shop we have visited with the roaster in the room. 
Caffeinated, we take advantage of blue sky and a car, and drive east to the gorges. Hike up through green lush stream, moss covered hardwoods to a spectacular waterfall.
Day #3 Raring to go and we have a plan....
First stop, a lovely pour over from Mexico (Chiapas region) at Ristretto, so so tasty, especially with a buckwheat fig scone....yum!
Bus the #6 down into southeast industrial area along the river. Water Ave roasters had a fruity Ethiopia and a great neon sign above their rare Samiac French roaster.
Just next door, the famed and much drooled about Clive Coffee. Simple, clean design for retail sales of home coffee brewing equipment. Beautiful shop that can answer any question you could have about grind, tamp, pressure, extraction, etc. One of these one-of-a-kind wooden handled tampers might be coming home with us....
We continued up the street to the much praised Coava coffee. Known for their unusual decor of refurbished industrial wood tools now used as counters and cafe tables. The shop shares the open space with a Bamboo company. We shared a pour over made with their unique metal Chemex filter, the Kone. Tasty and visibly less filtered then a normal paper filter.
After a day of meeting great coffee people and drinking even more great coffee we finally ended up at the root of all Portland coffee... Stumptown! Just in time for afternoon cupping, we were warmly met and jumped right in.
A great around the world cupping tour with some fresh, electric coffees followed up with a private coffee tour or their state of the art brand new facility. Bigger than big, the 60-kilo roaster rocked our socks and made us miss our (much littler) Marlena.
While I appreciated my Stumptown coffee order, I have to say I am more than thrilled to have 44 North just down the road. Your coffee is equally, if not more, impressive!
Leave a comment