Sorbido: Betraying Coffee

For almost a decade I’ve been lucky enough to travel through Mexico and other countries to see and photograph the coffee industry. Every country and region has its own identity. A coffee in Tijuana is not the same as a coffee in Cusco. The differences are clear from country to country, and sometimes from city to city.

If there’s one place I know better than my own hometown, it’s Portland. I love the coffee scene here, not only because the city was one of the cradles of third wave coffee, but because of what it has given back to the industry. The “specialty coffee shop look” you see everywhere now was shaped in large part by cafés in this city. Coava, Stumptown, Barista, Albina Press. They opened their doors here first.

I could talk about that history for hours, but I won’t bore you with it. I’m here for something more specific, something that caught my eye the moment I arrived: how Portland drinks its coffee black.

When I first got here I was confused. Almost no one was serving pour over. In Mexico, and in most of Central and South America, pour over is the symbol of specialty coffee. Here it barely registered. At first I hated it. How could they not want to brew fresh coffee in front of the customer? Still, I ordered every pour over I could find. You have to understand, in Mexico we mostly drink Mexican coffee. Here you can taste beans from every origin in the world. So I went to Coava, Push Pull, Proud Mary, La Perlita, In J, Upper Left. At the time they all poured. I don’t know if they still do.

The more I explored the city, the more I saw the truth. Most Portlanders weren’t drinking pour overs, or even americanos. They were drinking drip.

Something in me resisted it. Drip felt beneath the craft of a manual brew. But I owed it a fair try. I think I was at Prince Coffee, and they were running Proud Mary beans. I ordered a cup. It was fine. Drip comes out hotter than a pour over or an americano, so the first sips gave up almost nothing. Then five minutes passed, the cup cooled, I drank a little more, and that was it. I was hooked. I’ll admit that even as I liked it, part of me felt like I was betraying coffee.

I started drinking drip more and more, and then it clicked. It’s fast. Usually it’s cheaper. In most shops here it’s dialed in, and the beans are excellent.

But I also understood why I would never want drip back home. In Mexico, drip coffee usually means dark roast and blends. I have nothing against either. The reason is different. We save our best beans for pour over so we can walk the customer through the traceability, the process, the tasting notes. It isn’t that we lack great coffee. We have it. It’s that we believe our best coffee deserves the time it takes to share it right.

Coffee is not the same from one city to the next. There are traditions. There is culture. There is a way of saying things.

That’s why the drip coffee here is one of the best experiences a coffee lover can have in this city. Here’s where I drink mine, and why.

Sisters Coffee Company, in the Pearl District. A beautiful, women-owned space. They usually pour two beans, one medium and one dark. I always take the medium. It’s single origin, and it’s often washed, honey, or natural.

Puff Coffee, a little darker than I usually go for, but I love it. The coffees are balanced and very sweet, and it’s one of my favorite cafés in the world. I can drink a drip and edit photos here for hours.

Heart, my go-to when I want single origin, light roast, almost always washed. They’ve become one of my favorite roasters, and one of the truest representations of a Portland coffee shop.

Albina Press. This café is history. I don’t know if the rest of the world counts it that way, but here it’s one of the OGs. They don’t roast, but they’ve served Coava for what feels like forever, so the coffee is dialed in. If you want the real PNW feeling, this is the one. The look, the vibe, the punk music in the background. This is it.

As specialty coffee keeps spreading, I’m glad to see better cups everywhere. In cafés, in restaurants, in bars, in hotels, on planes. In the end we all want the same thing.

For better coffee, today.
Juanjo