Black Ichor Of Life

Starting at the top (left to right): The Red E, Café Velo, Cellar Door, Maglia Rosa, The Albina Press, Courier Coffee, The Fresh Pot, Boyd’s Coffee, Coava Coffee Roasters, Public Domain, Barista, Clive Coffee, Ristretto, Case Study Coffee, Sterling Coffee Roasters, Heart Coffee Roasters, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Coffeehouse Northwest, Extracto, Water Avenue Coffee

Bit of humor at Boyd's

     Today’s post topic really has nothing to do with PA school or practice, but I’ll try to find some way to bring it back to the purpose of this blog. Many of my friends at home know that I had a project I was working on during my last few months at home. Thanks to my nights in the ED, where coffee was a frequent topic of discussion, I decided to make my way through a list of the top twenty coffee brewers and roasters in Portland I left for New England. Since my home isn’t actually in Portland and I don’t make it into the city that often, there were times when I wasn’t sure I’d complete the list in time. However, I visited the last place on my list the day I flew to Boston, completing my goal, and I’ve decided to quickly share what I’ve learned. 

      When I judged the different places I visited, I took into account not only the taste/texture/appearance of the coffee, but also the décor and atmosphere of the coffee place (including the attitude of the baristas), and the variety of the coffee available, plus any signature quirks about the coffee place. This was sort of a casual appraisal so I never wrote anything down, but I kept a running mental list of my favorites. The only place not really included is Clive Coffee which, while it's on the list I used to find places, did not actually serve coffee but rather sold coffee equipment and roasted coffee beans. It was quite a fun place to stop in, but not a coffee shop. Here’s my list:

Three espresso blends at Barista

• Best Seating: The Albina Press not only had great coffee, but were also a nice place to stick around and have a conversation with someone. They had picnic tables outside for nice weather, lots of tables instead, and even a couple of comfy couches in a nook-ish area. Big bonus in my book because coffee is more fun when you’re with someone. It’s hard to pick a runner up because almost every shop had at least some nice seating. The only exceptions would be Boyd’s and Clive, but those two are focused more on roasting or selling coffee products and are not truly cafes so their lack of seating makes sense. 
• Best Expression of Portland: This one is hard to choose because all these places represented the coffee culture that is such a key part of Portland. However, I’d have to go with Courier Coffee. Not only is it located just one block from the best part of Portland, Powell’s Books, but the shop is completely independent, the coffee is fair-trade, deliveries are made by bike, and the owner/roaster/barista is apparently able to give you bios on the families that grew the coffee beans they use. The shop is a good mix of hipster, classy, and hole-in-the-wall. Runner-up for this distinction would be Maglia Rosa simply for the fact that this “shop” is a single cart located in a bike shop with limited offerings and a bike-through coffee window. Just so stereotypical Portland. It’s also located just a couple blocks from Powell’s. 
• Best Sense of Humor: Boyd’s Coffee is far and away the winner, and this is one of the main reasons why this was one of my favorite places on the list. While many of the other places exuded a certain amount of snobbery, and some made me feel like I wasn’t cool enough to be there, Boyd’s produced a high quality product without taking themselves too seriously. There were funny signs all around their coffee shop/roasterie, and even their motto (“Established 1900. Seriously”) showed their joking side. The baristas were middle-aged women who were quick to help and quick to laugh at their own need for help (they were re-vamping their website when I visited and it was hilarious to hear them joke about their struggles). It was impossible not to leave without a big smile on my face.
• Friendliest Barista: This one is similar to the last category, but much more difficult to judge because much of my view of the baristas is entirely dependent on the day I visited and on which barista served me, but I’m going to try. It’s also tricky to pick just one winner, so I’m just going to list my top three. Those are the baristas at Boyd’s, Cellar Door, and Barista. Café Velo also wins big points because the barista gave me free coffee and still sold me a biscuit even though I arrived after the café was supposed to have closed. 
• Best Atmosphere: Yet another category where it’s hard to pick just one so I’ll just going to mention a couple favorites that were great in their own ways. Sterling has drawn comparisons to a Kinfolk magazine, and it’s easy to see why. The café itself is quite tiny, but it is classy and quaint, and the baristas add to the atmosphere by dressing rather fancily. Sitting on the sidewalk outside it is easy to imagine yourself on a side street in Europe. In a different style, Extracto seemed like a great place to just hang out with your friends, or even your kids as I saw quite a few families doing. There are so many Stumptown locations that it’s hard to make a generalization about then, but one near PSU was a small, quiet place with comfy chairs that was just perfect for studying. 
• Best Selection: Some of the cafes, like Maglia Rosa, Coava Coffee, and Coffeehouse Northwest, had a very limited selection of drinks to choose from. Usually the cafes offered at least espresso, Americanos, cappuccinos, and lattes, but some offered only one size, and some offered only these four choices. Usually they were a good example of doing just a few things, but doing them well. Sometimes though, it was nice to have a bit more variety, or at least be able to choose a size. Most of the other cafes added drinks like mochas, and/or offered different drink sizes and flavors, but Case Study Coffee stood out to me for their offerings. They had all the usual offerings and drinks popular at other coffee places, but they also included original drinks that sounded both fun and classy. 



Public Domain

• Best Coffee: This one is impossible for me to decide. I’m just not knowledgeable enough, and, frankly, every location on this list offered high-quality and delicious coffee. Case Study, Barista and Coava stand out a bit because they use 2-3 blends to make the espresso for their beverages, using a different blend for each drink and changing the varieties offered daily or weekly. This meant that you could order three identical lattes and have them all taste slightly different depending on the blend used, and if you had any questions, you can bet the barista at any of these places would be able to teach you about the origins and flavors of each blend. Many of the coffee places used the same roasts as others on the list, so bonus points go to the stores that roasted their own beans. Those are: Extracto, Heart, Boyd’s, Stumptown, Sterling, Courier, Case Study, Cellar Door, Public Domain, The Red E, Ristretto, and Water Avenue. Depending on when you visited Extracto, you could even watch some of the roasting process. 

I’d like to give a big thank you to all the people who helped me get through this list. Many times I visited a coffee place by myself while in the area for work or school or whatever, but it was much more fun to experience a coffee place with friends. I managed to take pictures of many of my coffee companions (see left), though for some reason I don’t have any pictures of the person who came with me to more places than anyone else: my mom. So thank you, Mom! :) 

Sadly, Boston is not really big on small, independent coffee shops, so it looks like I'll mostly be using Dunks and Starbucks to fuel my PA studies (told you I'd bring this post back to the point of the blog), but I'll keep exploring and see if I can find some coffee gems even out here. 

For anyone who's interested, this is the list I used to find the coffee places I visited: A Guide to Portland's 20 Best Coffeehouses and Roasters. Also, I went looking for fun terms for coffee and found "Black Ichor of Life" and it was too good not to use for this post.