Speaking of ancestry...

After visiting Lighthouse, I lumbered down the road a mile or so to Milstead & Co., a café that sits quietly beneath the towering concrete pylons of the Aurora Bridge. Milstead is more like what I am used to when I think of a specialty café. Admittedly, the coffee selections had something to do with that. At the bar, the coffee signs hanging on the espresso grinders said….Coava and Stumptown.

“Do you have anything from Seattle?” I asked.

“The only coffees we carry that are roasted in Seattle are from Stumptown,” the barista told me.

Stumptown doesn’t count, and while it would have been a fun experiment to see how a Seattle café works with Portland coffees, I decided to try a brewed coffee instead, where there were more options. I chose a Rwandan coffee from Intelligentsia and watched as the “brewista” set up the AeroPress on a scale, taking care to weigh both coffee and water to the nearest gram.

She must have done everything right, because the coffee was very, very tasty. It was slightly sweet, savory, had a mellow acidity and a big, satisfying body. The complexity and depth of flavors reminded me of a good marinara sauce, where the tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and white wine fuse together to make something that each alone could never be.

Milstead is an relaxing space, with calming grays and tans around the café. The tables, framed with welded rectangular tube steel and topped with chunks of reclaimed 2x10s, sit sturdily on a polished concrete floor. The café was quiet enough you could hear the soft music playing in the background, but not so quiet you would feel awkward having a conversation. Several people were working on their laptops, but a few people were chatting. The space was large enough to accommodate both.

Between the stellar coffee and the appealing, modern space, I would say that Milstead & Co. looked like the offspring of Portland’s Water Avenue and Barista cafés, with a bit of Ristretto thrown in for good measure. It’s definitely worth a stop if you are in Seattle.

Vitals

Milstead & Co
Address: 770 North 34^th Street, Seattle, WA 98103 (map)
Phone: 206-979-0010
Hours: Monday-Friday 6am-6pm
            Saturday-Sunday 7am-6pm
Wi-Fi? Yes
Recommendation? A West Coast coffee flight
Website: www.milsteadandco.com 

Stumptown’s Seattle heritage - a trip to Lighthouse

The 2013 Northwest Regional Barista Championship was held this past weekend in Seattle (Coava’s Devin Chapman won, defending his title from last year). Judging in last year’s NWRBC and USBC was so much fun that I volunteered to do it again this year. After going through judges calibration and certification Thursday, a scheduling quirk left me all day Friday to explore Seattle under sunny(-ish) skies. Naturally, I went looking for coffee.

My first destination was Lighthouse Roasters, in the Fremont neighborhood northwest of downtown. Visiting Lighthouse was a type of pilgrimage (minus the religious connotations) to one of the headwaters of Portland’s specialty coffee industry. If you have read much about Stumptown Coffee, you might recognize the Lighthouse name. Lighthouse is where Stumptown’s Duane Sorenson learned to roast, under the tutelage of Ed Leebrick. Going to Lighthouse was a chance to see the environment in which Sorenson forged his coffee skills.

Hopping off the bus at the corner of 43^rd and Phinney, I first noticed how quiet the neighborhood was. Single-family houses and small apartment buildings lined the streets. Few cars passed by. Had it not been on such a large hill, the neighborhood could have been Southeast Portland.

Inside, Lighthouse’s décor was simple. The floor was a sage and pale green-gray linoleum, durable and functional. The wooden tables were sturdy, but plain. A short partition separated the back third of the shop, carving out the roasting area from the seating area. The other side of the low wall was crowded with jute bags of green coffee and stacks of large plastic tubs for roasted beans. Most prominently, a Gothot roasting machine whirred, its gas burner rumbling while beans swished and swashed around inside the drum. From time to time, the roaster opened the door and dark brown coffee beans cascaded onto the cooling table, crackling and popping vigorously.

Unlike the neighborhood, the interior of the café was loud and boisterous. In addition to the roaster, customers contributed a lot of noise too. Several people sat around the coffee bar on round stools, talking to the roaster and to the baristas. The majority of people who came in were actually there to converse. Surprisingly, no one was sitting in front of a laptop, a rarity in most cafés these days. Since I already stood out a stranger, I left mine in my backpack and jotted down a few notes on paper.

Sitting at my table, I couldn’t help but think of the similarities between Lighthouse and Stumptown Division. Between the quiet residential neighborhoods, the simple furnishings, the lively atmospheres (Stumptown attracts a lot of Laptopistanis, but makes up for their silence with loud music), and the roasting machines sitting at the front of both cafés, you could see many parallels between the two shops. I felt like I had gained a small insight into Stumptown’s origins.

Then I tried my espresso.

For the record, I do not consider Stumptown’s Hair Bender to be a delicate espresso. Its lemony brightness and chocolaty finish were made to stand out in milk drinks, something it does well. On its own, Hair Bender has a complex taste profile that takes time to get used to.

However, Hair Bender is almost fragile compared to the Lighthouse espresso. Dark-roasted, with a rough, gritty finish, the Lighthouse espresso wanted to force my taste buds into submission instead of befriending them. The profile obviously plays well in that part of Seattle—the traffic in and out the door remained steady throughout my visit—but to my coddled Portland palate (and I admit it’s coddled), the Lighthouse espresso was almost too harsh to drink. Nonetheless, I’m sure it is something you could get used to if you drank it every day.

I found the trip to Lighthouse very informative. These days, as Stumptown grows and changes, the two companies have less in common, but at one point, it appears they were very similar. With humans, descendants never turn out exactly like their ancestors, but they often share a lot of the same traits. Coffee roasters, apparently, can be the same way.

Vitals

Lighthouse Roasters
Address: 400 North 43rd Street, Seattle, WA 98103 (map)
Phone: 206-634-3140 (café only)
Hours: Monday-Friday 6am-7pm
            Saturday-Sunday 6:30am-7pm
Wi-Fi? I think so
Recommendation? A cappuccino, perhaps
Website: lighthouseroasters.com

JoLa La!

Having traveled around most of Portland between I-205 and the West Hills, I rarely encounter “undiscovered” cafés, and it always enthuses me when I hear about a café serving high-end coffees hidden in some corner of the city. Monday morning, I happened upon the JoLa Café, named after the Johns Landing neighborhood where it resides. (Unfortunately, and perhaps unforgivably, I left my phone behind when I left the house, so I am unable to share any pictures. My words will have to suffice for now.)

South of downtown, stretching from the Willamette River on the east side to I-5 on the west side, Johns Landing has long been popular place for Portlanders who find it close enough to the city center for easy access, yet far enough away for a more relaxing lifestyle. The neighborhood also appears in Portland’s coffee history. Several decades ago, David Kobos set up his first shop in Johns Landing.

Buried deep inside the residential part of the neighborhood, JoLa would be hard pressed to get enough foot traffic solely for coffee to support the business. Attracting a lunch crowd and even a light dinner crowd (the café is open until 7pm and serves wine and beer) would be important for long-term success. Therefore, it was unsurprising that the café smelled more like breakfast than coffee. Still, the three-group Synesso sitting on the bar signals that the café takes its coffee seriously.

JoLa café serves Stumptown coffee, but not exclusively. Coava was the alternate on the day I visited. I ordered the latter, and my espresso had the typical characteristics of a Coava roast profile. It was bright but smooth, hitting my palate with a bold acidity that melted away as it washed across my tongue. A slightly bitter aftertaste lingered, reminiscent of a stout black tea.

JoLa Café is set up in two distinct parts, in a space that appears to have once been two separate shops. The right side (as you enter) is deep and wide, with a left-facing L-shaped coffee bar about half way back. Rectangular tables for twos and fours line either side of the aisle. At the very back of the shop, a long conference table sits two steps up, somewhat segregated from the rest of the café. A small sign on the table politely asks individuals to sit elsewhere in order to accommodate larger groups. The left half of the shop is more comfortable, with a few stuffed chairs and some toys for kids in addition to more tables.

I parked myself at the front window, electing a location where I would not be tempted to watch the rest of the café. Fewer distractions equals more writing, and these days, writing is what I need to get done. (I’m working on my first book and it is taking longer than I thought. Mostly my own fault, but that is a story for another day.)

Over the café’s speakers, Eric Clapton and B.B. King bent strings and softly serenaded the café. Later, the music transitioned to classics from the ‘60s. The music stayed at a reasonable level, providing an pleasant background energy without blasting customers’ eardrums, a problem I have noticed in several other cafés lately (maybe I’m showing my age in complaining about music volume, but it seems like some baristas have forgotten that people actually have conversations over coffee).

Open since July 2011, JoLa was new to me, but it was obviously not undiscovered. A steady stream of people passed in and out of the café. Some came in for a late breakfast, but many just came for coffee. A few Laptopistanis set up shop for the morning, some poring over the latest market news and others tending to their latest creative project. The open space provided an apt environment for both. I don’t spend much time in Johns Landing, but when I do, I will likely return to the JoLa Café.

Vitals
Address: 5915 SW Corbett Ave., Portland, OR  97239 (map), Bus line 43
Phone: 503-244-1812
Hours: Monday-Sunday 7am-7pm
Coffee: Stumptown + a guest roaster
Wi-Fi? Yes
Recommendation? Arrive early to get in a productive day
Website: www.jolacafe.com/

Let's get ready to....pull shots! (NWRBC 2013 is almost here)

The Northwest Regional Barista Competition (NWRBC) is coming up the first weekend of February, and to help potential competitors prepare, the Barista Guild and Sprudge.com hosted a mock competition run-through on January 5^th at the American Barista and Coffee School in Portland (there was also one in Seattle the night before).

Laila Ghambari, who now works for Caffe Ladro in Seattle, put together a 15-minute performance to demonstrate what a typical entry would look like. To make the demonstration as real as possible, two technical judges and four sensory judges (including me) gave her a set of scores, just as we would in a real competition. Marcus Young, of Central City Coffee acted as the head judge and led us as we discussed our scores in front of everyone.

The event informed (and hopefully inspired) the baristas in the audience who were interested in competing at the NWRBC and beyond. Afterwords, Sprudge put together a nice video that explained Laila’s performance as she went through it. Check it out below:

NWRBC details:
When: February 1-3, 2013
Where: Urban Enoteca, 4130 1st Ave S, Seattle, WA, 98134 (map)
Why you should go: You like coffee and/or Seattle
Cost: Free to watch, as far as I know (it has been in the past), and includes as much espresso as you will ever want to drink in a day
Website: In case you don’t go, you can watch it streaming online at: http://usbaristachampionships.org

FoPo's Finest - Speedboat Coffee

When people think about Southeast Portland, they used to think of hippies, tattoos, and general Portland weirdness (okay, they still do, but bear with me). Over the last decade, Southeast has become much more fashionable—Hawthorne and Belmont, for example, are seeing an influx of people, pushing up rents and real estate values. Southeast Division is also experiencing a renaissance, with several new shops and condominiums (without parking!?!) planned or under construction.

One Southeast neighborhood you don’t hear much about, though, is the FoPo neighborhood. FoPo begins at Southeast 50^th Ave, where Foster splits off from Powell (thus, the FoPo moniker) and heads southeast toward I-205. For most people, FoPo is only seen through the windows of their cars as they drive by. City leaders don’t seem to give a damn about the neighborhood either, and when talk of urban renewal districts come up, no one ever mentions this part of the city. About the only time FoPo makes it into the news is when a pedestrian gets killed trying to cross Foster (the most dangerous street Portland). This is too bad. The neighborhood has a certain gritty charm to it, if you slow down long enough to see it, and many people living in the neighborhood care about it and want to see the area thrive.

While the neighborhood lacks the renown of other parts of the city, you can still find good coffee (this is Portland, after all). One shop in the neighborhood that particularly cares about coffee is Speedboat Coffee, located at Southeast 51^st and Foster. Speedboat sells single-origin espressos roasted by Stumptown, and has set the bar for quality coffee in FoPo. The shop is owned and operated by Don and Carissa Niemyer, two transplants who came to the Northwest six years ago in search of better coffee.

When the Niemyers moved to Portland from Colorado, Don was managing a Verizon retail outlet, but he wanted to get into coffee. Don soon left Verizon and purchased a small coffee kiosk (a “glorified concession stand that served bad coffee from Costco,” in his words) at the Gateway Transit Center. The couple soon switched to serving Stumptown, to the benefit of commuting coffee drinkers.

Don used the profitable kiosk as his “coffee lab,” a place where he could experiment and hone his coffee skills. A year later, the couple purchased Speedboat, with the intent to make it their “real” shop. When they bought it, Speedboat was the typical “second wave” café, serving mediocre coffee hidden beneath loads of syrups and milks. “They had every flavor of syrup you could imagine,” recalled Don. “They had twenty-four ounce snickerdoodle mochas, that type of thing.”

To avoid alienating their customers, the Niemyers waited a couple months to implement big changes, but it was not long before most of the syrups went into the trash. Carissa recalled the day with much pleasure. “On the day Don gave me the go ahead, I threw away seventy-five bottles of syrup,” she said.

Today, the Niemyers are working hard to build their business around better coffee. They set high standards for their baristas and have garnered a loyal group of customers. To make sure they are keeping up on the latest in coffee, the Niemyers became certified barista competition judges and judged at the NWRBC and the USBC last year. The couple is planning to judge at the NWRBC in Seattle this year.

Despite its growth over the last twenty years, Portland is still a little rough around the edges. Not every neighborhood in Portland is as trendy or as polished as the Pearl District, but that’s okay. In Portland, you can find solid coffee in places you would never expect it. FoPo’s Speedboat Coffee is one of those places. If you happen to be heading out Powell or Foster (perhaps you commute through there) and are in need of some good coffee, Speedboat is definitely the stop to make. 

Vitals
Address: 5115 SE Foster Road, Portland OR 97206 (map)
Phone: 503-775-6628
Hours: Monday-Saturday 6am-5pm
            Sundays: 8am-2pm
Coffee: Stumptown
Wi-Fi? Yes
Recommendations? Ask for a coffee/pastry pairing
Website: speedboatcoffee.com or the Speedboat FB page