Spent two nights and full day in Portland. It was a sort of throwback Artist's Date for my wife and I. The goal was to spend an entire uninterrupted day at Powell's Books, and talk to each other without being interrupted by triplets until there was nothing left to talk about and we were just quiet in intervals. We stayed at the Westin which has great beds, the Heavenly Bed(tm) and we saw Kurt Loftstrom, the guitar player in my old band, My Eye, and met his housemate/significant other Ann Grugich and were pretty much blown away and inspired by their work. But this post is about coffee.
Like a said, we stayed at the Westin. Right next door, close enough for a 10% discount, was Public Domain coffee. Sort of a cross between Intelligentsia (without the pretention) and Blue Bottle (without the full on gadgetry). A good, solid third wave coffee place. I toggled back and forth between a short latte in a cappuccino cup, and an espresso machiatto, my drink of choice at Intelligentsia. We visited Stumptown on break from Powell's bookstore. I had a machiatto there, too. Both places were like Intelligentsia in the sense that the coffee was non-offensive, smooth as a shot and could be drunk basically straight, but didn't have a whole lot of character.
I think both places were actually slightly better than Intelligentsia, in that regard.
I bought a pound of the Prometheus blend at Public Domain, and the Hair Bend blend at Stumptown. Right now, I'm making the hair bend at home and it's a dark nut brown, with a frothy crema - extraordinary, when compared to average coffees, actually, and right down the pipe even with the other really good 3rd wavers, ie Blue Bottle, Four Barrel, Vivace, Victrola.
Side note: I'm using a blend of Illy - the old uber-expensive standby - and whole bean from Cost Plus right now - I use a scoop of each in the espresso basket, and that's pretty good. The Stumptown, or Stumptown split with Illy is better.
