Stumptown coffee isn't bad... It isn't my favorite. There is nothing wrong with coffee made with a brewer, in an air pot if it's fresh. My extractor (brewer, dripper, wte) if fucking nice. It cost a fair amount of money but a hell of a lot less than a clover. It pre-wets the coffee and brews it over a period of five minutes. It's pretty much a giant pour over machine. Any time I get a new variety or my roaster changes my roast, I make it as a pour over and compare it to the drip, some times I like the drip better. If I still drank coffee at home (if I wasn't always at work) I'd probably be using an aeropress. It's fast, clean and makes a great single cup of coffee. It wins out in the clean and fast department. If I have company over I'll make a pot in my shitty Mr. Coffee dripper. Good beans make good coffee, it's almost hard to fuck up.
You're right - Stumptown isn't bad. It also isn't the Second Coming, which is a difficult conversation to have with anyone who seeks out Stumptown. Intelligentsia, on the other hand, is shit coffee. I have thrown out coffee twice in my life: the first was Intelligentsia. The second was the free rest stop coffee south of Olympia on the drive up here. I've had free rest stop coffee for half my life, and I've never thrown it out before. I think that says something about Intelligentsia. Say what you will about the aeropress, but fuck this bullshit in the neck. I'm not (1) Grinding my fucking coffee by hand (2) making it 8oz at a time (3) spending a c-note to get three free coozies. As a manual grinder, it uses no electricity, so you can get fresh ground coffee anywhere - and a bit of arm exercise too! The grind quality is very even, and the low speed manual grinding action provides a superior tasting cup of coffee compared to a typical high speed blade grinder.
Stumptown has lost a good deal of it's shine over the past few years. It just got sold to Peet's coffee, which is in turn owned by a giant holding company, the same holding that company owns Jimmy Choo's. Word is that they want to take the supermarket canned cold brew world wide. Heart is the big dog in town at the moment. They don't make coffee, just espresso. They will try and make you feel bad about yourself if you order coffee. It's really good espresso, its expensive espresso. Like so many things, after you start buying top quality stuff, the improvement you get from buying the very "best" is marginal and a big part of the satisfaction is the snootyness of the whole thing. My roaster is cheap for premium coffee. The owner is a terrible business man. He sucks at sales and marketing, barely gets my orders to me in time, I have to remind him to bill me. They deliver everything by bike, I don't know how they make any money after the labor of slowly pushing coffee all around town. All their equipment is ancient, exotic and premium needing constant tweaking and maintenance. They brew their pour overs in mason jars topped with expensive German filters that totter precariously and occasionally tip and spill. It's just chaos. They ride no Wave and are on no bandwagon. Their coffee is usually great, occasionally bad and every once in a while it's just fucking amazing. He had a blog post not long ago where a thousand pounds of Giraldo Exotica showed up at his tiny roastery, he didn't remember buying it and had no where to put it but hell yea! Giraldo Exotica is delicious! I think the only thing he's good at is making coffee and riding bikes. Almost no one knows his brand but the few who do are excited because it is it's own thing. Unpredictable, unpretentious, and often inconsistent which gives it a chance to be occasionally amazing rather than safe (Stumptown is safe as the bank, don't think I've thought about how a cup if it tasted in years). Dude gave me 5 pounds of Ethiopian Gedeb, a yirgacheffee. This is an announcement, yirgacheffee is a region with a bunch of different coffee's that are often quite different from each other, stop saying you hate yirgacheffee (it's fine to say you often hate them). This coffee tasted like blueberries. I don't say things like that. I don't "detect hints of apricot, mothballs and cardamon" I try and reduce it to straight emotivism, I like it or I don't. At most I'll have one or two reasons I like or dislike it, which can some times be "tastes funky". How the hell do you move five pounds of blueberry coffee? Shit was amazing in a I'd try that once kinda way, sure as he'll wasn't "safe". Honest to God it was like putting a blueberry in your mouth and chomping down while taking a swig. I'm just blathering now...
Wow. I've thought about a concept for a "coffee shop" that only does high end espressos, and has 3-5 premium beans dialed in on any given day. Was thinking about it after having some phenomenal espressos at a place not to far from me, -felt you could make a shop centered on that. Of course they're already into that in Portland.Heart is the big dog in town at the moment. They don't make coffee, just espresso.
I was at a Stumptown this past weekend to do some work and to take part in one of their cuppings and spent some time talking to the employees there, their impression is what you just said. Blow up their cold brew business and who cares about anything else that they do. They make a decent cup of coffee, not great, but hey, they do some great informative sessions such as the cuppings and resources online. Aeropress is amazing and so is grinding coffee even if it's by hand, I typically only make one cup at a time anyway (maybe more if I'm doing a comparison) but intend on buying a Chemex or a Kalita Wave because a good pour over is probably my favorite brewing method. So clean, and really great for things like the Gedeb you're talking about. African coffees are currently my favorite and I'd happily drink a few pounds worth, though I've had some really nice Honduran and Guatemalan beans as of late. Weirdest coffee you've had? Also, welcome back to the Seattle coffee scene kleinbl00.Stumptown has lost a good deal of it's shine over the past few years. It just got sold to Peet's coffee, which is in turn owned by a giant holding company, the same holding that company owns Jimmy Choo's. Word is that they want to take the supermarket canned cold brew world wide.
As far as I'm concerned, the "Seattle coffee scene" is $10/lb decent fresh beans at Fred Meyer. Anything beyond that is luxury. Altho - Camano Island Roasters apparently allows you to buy coffee less frequently than a pound every week so I may very well do that again.
What I'm getting out of this is we should meet up at a place that's all about coffee and will tell you all about it while charging $5 + tip for an aeropress. You'll love it.
I got some Kopi Luwak as a Christmas present a few years back. I was never brave enough to drink it.Weirdest coffee you've had?