The morning of our Music Fest Northwest show with Girl Talk I rolled everyone out of bed and made us go directly to stumptown coffee in Portland. I want you to be familiar with who they are. There is a real emerging coffee vanguard in the US that (in my humble opinion) EASILY rivals anything that Europe has to offer, and stumptown are at the crest of that wave.
As soon as we’d received our espresso drinks (all relatively short milk servings not a hair above 120 degrees), everyone had forgiven me for kicking them out of the hotel room 9 hours before load-in. I picked up a couple of pounds to go (an Ethiopia Wondo and a Kenya Gaturiri Reserve), which I had to impatiently wait to brew for like four more tour dates (backstage always had a french press but no grinder).
But now i’m just getting to this Kenya Gauriri Reserve and it is honestly blowing my mind. The packaged notes suggested to look out for: “Black currant, blackberry cobbler, baked pear, and blackstrap molasses…phenomenally balanced, syrupy yet clean and sweet cup.” I brewed it with a chemex w roughly 200 degree water and the extraction I got was everything suggested. It begins with an acutely gentle spice and then you get an unmistakably creamy sort of caramel sensation, and then it finishes with a hint of pear that is fully crisp. The cup as it cooled literally had three different phases of taste, all of which should have been somewhat contradictory and interfering, but that somehow were balanced and discrete from one another. I’ve had stumptown plenty of times and loved it (it’s my first choice when in New York), but after copping this selection I feel strongly that they need a presence in Los Angeles. Who do I have to call?
