Stumptown, Portland, Oregon: Coffee for MEEE!

Ah, caffeine.  Most useful of drugs. 

Portlanders have a huge array of wonderful places to grab a cuppa.  One of the older contenders is a chain (small, though, so please don't think mega-starbucks-mcdonaldsland; we're talking five locations in Portland, two in Seatlle, one in NYC, and one in Amsterdam) called Stumptown.

Stumptown, by the way, is one of Portland's nicknames; Wikipedia says it's because land was cleared so quickly when the place was built that they didn't have time to clear the tree stumps.  Perhaps "they" needed more CAFFEINE!

After our breakfast at Broder, where we'd actually enjoyed several middle of the road cups of Stumptown-roasted coffee, we headed to the nearest outpost for a couple of espressi.

(Kinda cute, but also reminds me of the Spaghetti Warehouse signage in downtown Austin.)

What to order, what to order.  Macchiatos, using Stumptown's Hairbender espresso blend!

We passed on the opportunity to buy some Stumptown coffee, since we had plenty of beans back at the house. Tempting packaging, though. I need to get a big dark jar for our coffee, since I'm hearing that freezing beans introduces yucky fridgetaste to them.

I don't have a strong opinion about freezing vs. not freezing and packaging of our coffee beans. Perhaps I should. This article in Serious Eats from last week makes some interesting points; maybe I should run a similar experiment on our coffee beans when we finally get back to Austin. What do you guys do with your coffee beans?

All digressions aside, this outpost of Stumptown (the original one, on SE Division) made a kickass macchiato, even including a bit of lovely latte art.  Pretty AND tasty - what more could you want?

I'm just glad the place lived up to their reputation for good coffee.  It's so disappointing to go into places that talk a good game and then serve a sour, bitter, thin espresso.  (I'm looking at you, Crema in Denver.)  So good on you, Stumptown, for doing your thing and doing it well.  Thanks for the pretty coffee! 

Stumptown Coffee Roasters has multiple locations, but the one we visited was at 4525 SE Division St. in Portland. 503.230.7702.

Comments

[Jaye Joseph]

A friend sent me a bag of Hairbender a couple of weeks ago and I brewed it in the press according to Stumptown's VERY explicit directions on their site. It was pretty tasty. I sent her a bag of Cuvee (can't remember which roast) and she enjoyed it too. Trading coffee is fun!

[Bonnibella]

Found you guys on urbanspoon. Loving the blog and all the traveling places. I don't freeze my beans but putting them in a dark jar sounds like the way to do it. Have you had blue bottle in San Francisco?

[Boots in the Oven]

Thanks, Bonnibella! We haven't tried blue bottle - the next time we get out to the Bay Area we'll be sure to stop by!