Alright,
It's been about a month since I got back from my excursions out west. I've written some reviews, reflections, and thoughts of San Francisco and San Diego- perhaps for some good, perhaps not, and probably... in a totally misinformed style. Writing these reviews felt like a good thing to do and easy enough. The voyage ahead, though, ...to write a review or anything about Portland, OR and their coffee scene seems like both suicide and not original.

...but all things need to come to a close. Had Schubert not died, he would have finished his Unfinished symphony. And my mom often tells me that I'm the most handsome, talented, and the smartest boy in the world. So because I'm way smarter and more talented than that guy, I feel a bit of an obligation to finish this blog series and show up now-dead and defenseless Austrian prodigy musicians like Mr Schubert. Here goes nothing:

PORTLAND-MOTHA'-FUCKIN'-ORE-GON.

the mecca.

This town runs off of Stumptown coffee and microbrews... clearly making it absolutely no fun to live in or visit.

Some background information: I first visited PDX in the summer of 2006. My family had recently discovered that my father's father is not of actual blood relation to us. SOOO, as I like to tell others, I became a reformed Sicilian. Upon hiring a private dick, we discovered that my father had some half-siblings living out in Portland and off we were.

One of my music theory TA's hipped me to some places worth checking out in Portland. One such place was Stumptown Coffee. With the help of a "pretty-alright" $20 bike purchase via craigslist, I was off and checking out SE PDX. I swung by the SE Division Stumptown location. My caffe sensibilities were subsequently bitch-slapped by Stumptown's coffee. And then they were bitch slapped again by their espresso. In fact, my mouth/tongue basically got the shit kicked out of it in perhaps the best way ever, over and over again, for about a week.

I got back from PDX and went to Philly's infamous La Colombe Rittenhouse location and suddenly realized, I'd been drinking sub-par coffee for about six years under the illusion that it was world class coffee!

Thus, by chance and thanks to my TA Alison (a member of my karass*), my 3rd Wave barista education was underway.

So, here I am, approximately two years older and perhaps a tiny bit smarter, examining PDX in all its glory.

When I arrived in PDX, I checked into my hostel, made a few phone calls to some local baristas/managers, and was off to Stumptown's downtown location. Once there, I ordered a capp and felt right at home. Actually, I was way closer to home than I even realized. I sat down, got my laptop out, and was off to Craigslist to investigate possible places to live, when the girl next to me started making some chit chat about CL. A few minutes into the conversation, I discovered the girl was from PA, Harrisburg to be exact. I recounted back to her that I'd been to Harrisburg a few times before and had a great time at shops like Neato Burrito. Well, it turned out she worked at Neato Burrito and consequently knew one of my best friend's little brothers! F'N WIERD!

While in Portland, I checked out most of the Stumptown locations, including the new Ace Hotel location. Again, check out the bathroom if you're at that location. It's sort of brooding and something suspect, like a scene out of The Matrix. While at Stumptown, I mostly drank their press pot coffee. I usually prefer espresso to "coffee" but these dudes are kings of the single origin art and most everything they offered via press pot was completely wonderful, interesting, and tasty. Check out the Honduras Finca El Puente and Guatemala Finca El Injerto (Bourban Varietal); these are some tasty gems. I had a chance to check out their Holler Mountain Blend, a good all around coffee. I also had a chance to check out the Indonesian Blue Baltak coffee. I did not exactly love it. I've had it before and was not crazy about it. Indonesian beans tend to make some darker, earthier, and garden-esque flavors, but they're also occasionally put through funny circumstances and growing/drying procedures (I've heard of roasters finding nails and things in some of those bags of green beans). While in PDX, I had the honor and pleasure of meeting up with Stumptown's Lizz Hudson. We had a great conversation about the farming process, accidental discoveries of beans, barista competitions, business controversies, the connection between 4Barrel/Jeremy Tooker and Stumptown, Cony Island, the Ace Hotel, and just about everything else under the sun or the Belmont Cafe's ceiling. Big props to her for taking some time out of her hectic schedule to chew the fat with a Philthy Philadelphian.

Thanks to the help of Heather down in SD/Calabria, I also had a chance to meet up with some of the lovely baristas from the Albina Press and, as a result, experience the awesomeness of which is the North or Mississippi/Albina neighborhood of Portland. Go and check it out, lots of good shops up there. I had a pretty decent and potent shot of espresso up there. Good stuff.

My hostel was located in NW PDX and luckily, located right down the street from Coffeehouse Northwest. I had the honor to get some sweet capps served up to me every morning by the loyal morning crew of Billy Wilson, Adam McGovern, and Daniel Gunter, via their Synesso. Those are some great people. They had no problem dishing out some coffee talk and great suggestions for coffee hunting/PDX-ing. They also have some mighty tastey pastries there. Check out the chocolate pistachio cookies. Protein and carbs, all one needs to get things going.

As mentioned before, Portland has more to offer than coffee. If you're around that way, check out Voodoo Donuts (bacon donut?), Blue Moon/McMenamin's Brew Pub (get the hammerhead amber ale), laughing planet cafe (great mexican-influenced eats and some tasty microbrews), the Red and Black cafe (self-explanatory), the local neighborhood and natural parks, and well anything and everything that should pique your fancy. Portland is not necessarily the largest city in the world in space but every neighborhood has at least 20 things/shops/etc to check out, making it very hard to see it all.

Well!, I reckon this is as good-a-spot to stop the jibba-jabba as any. I hope this little blog series did not make you punch your computer screen(s). You would have been justified.

Drink coffee well.

Love,
Charlie
*intellectual property of Kurt Vonnegut's Bokonon.