What did I love so much about Stumptown? First, the door to their roastery was wide open, welcoming us in. Everybody in there was hustling, and there were a bunch of folks working. The place was stacked, floor to ceiling. The roaster wasn’t huge, but is was working non-stop. We learned they fire it up at 6am and shut it down at 8pm every day.
Their shops had a very simple aesthetic. Lots of little details: e.g., their cups were both pre-printed (some text etc.) and hand-printed (logo). Look at that stack above. These are folks that know volume. And like almost every operation we saw that runs serious volumes they are streamlined, simple, and very high quality.
We tasted a bunch of coffees, all at the “Annex” because that’s the only place where they do drip. Yeah, I thought that was weird too. Portland is all in love with french press, and that’s all they do at their coffee shops. Really amazing experience.
Stumptown has a very non-fussy approach to coffee, we like that. And they have a huge emphasis on freshness, we like that too. They roast daily, and pack their coffee in paper because they want it to be used right away.
We brought back some samples to share. Come by the truck this week. They are amazing.