{"id":14698,"date":"2018-03-15T18:45:43","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T22:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=14698"},"modified":"2018-03-15T18:45:43","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T22:45:43","slug":"devils-brew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/devils-brew\/","title":{"rendered":"Devil\u2019s Brew"},"content":{"rendered":"

April 2018 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019re serious about our morning cup here.<\/span><\/h3>\n

By Claire Z. Cramer<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"APR18-Coffee\"Welcome to Portland, home of artisanal everything. We don\u2019t just do, we do it up. We have tasting rooms for local beer and kombucha, our restaurants source local food and create craft-cocktail menus, our bakeries offer loaves from grains grown and milled in Maine.<\/p>\n

Why should coffee shops <\/strong>be any different? It would be nuts to get in a rut drinking the same cup every day. By sipping around town, you can fall in love with coffee all over again.<\/span><\/p>\n

TO DRIP, PERCHANCE TO BREW<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

For a cool, clean vibe with sleek furnishings, it\u2019s easy to like Bard Coffee<\/strong> at 185 Middle Street. Wicked Joe Coffee, the Topsham-based company that sells wholesale organic and fair-trade beans nationally, owns this Old Port shop and roasts its custom beans.<\/span><\/p>\n

Menus run to both brewed and \u201cpoured-over\u201d hot coffee drinks. An 8-ounce cup of brewed dark roast is $2.50 (I stuck to plain black coffee everywhere, for the sake of comparison). It\u2019s utterly delicious with a deep, black espresso-like tang but no burnt bitterness. There are pastries from the Baker\u2019s Bench in Westbrook and Kamasouptra soups at lunchtime.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poured-over is serious here, and it\u2019s not cheap. A 12-ounce cup is $3.50. What\u2019s the appeal? \u201cYou\u2019re going to really taste the bean,\u201d says a barista at the pour-over station. She recommends a Guatemalan bean called Antonio Domingo. \u201cThat\u2019s the farmer who grew the beans.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Poured-over is also slow. She scoops Antonio\u2019s beans, grinds them, and puts them into a cone filter over a glass Chemex beaker on a tiny warming plate. She pours hot water in gradual increments over the beans. A good five or six minutes have elapsed since we started talking. Anyone in a hurry would have to plan ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who like coffee this way think it\u2019s the only way,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

What if you don\u2019t feel the magic? Where the brewed cup was rich and full-bodied, this slow-pour tastes weaker, a bit sour and fruity. But it tastes quite good when it\u2019s come to room temperature. Caitlin Sackville, who\u2019s been making coffee at Bard for more than four years, explains.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCoffee\u2019s like wine or food. Your palate can discern more nuance when it\u2019s closer to room temperature. When we introduce people to the pour-over style, we emphasize that it\u2019s not any better, it\u2019s just a different method. We use medium and lighter roasts, and the bean batches are often small\u2013too small to use for the [higher volume] brewed method.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe extra labor, and the fact that small batches can cost more, is reflected in the higher price. Back when I was just a customer, I always drank brewed dark roasts. Once I got interested in the characteristics of say, Costa Rican beans, I got to really appreciate the pour-over,\u201d But, that said, \u201cI like either one, and I drink them both.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

BAKERY SORCERY<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As soon as you get in line at Tandem Coffee <\/strong>at 242 Congress Street, you\u2019ll realize you\u2019re not leaving without one of baker Briana Holt\u2019s divine pastries. By the time I\u2019m handed my 10-ounce cup of drip-brewed Ethiopian ($2.75), I\u2019ve chosen the blood-orange scone ($3.50).<\/span><\/p>\n

You are a good person<\/em>, reads the sans-serif type wrapped around the paper cup.\u00a0 <\/span>Nice to know. The double-o\u2019s of good<\/em> are the wheels of the shop\u2019s signature tandem bike logo. The coffee\u2019s good, if a bit weak\u2013but that\u2019s just me\u2013and the flavor improves as it cools. The scone is a masterpiece.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the brew method, it\u2019s the roasting,\u201d says Tandem co-owner Will Pratt later on the phone from his roastery on Anderson Street. That subtly fruity quality of the coffee? \u201cCoffee should taste fruity. It\u2019s a fruit. If you\u2019re just roasting darker, you\u2019re just tasting carbon. I love talking about this\u2013we do tastings at the shop on Anderson Street,\u201d which he recommends to discover the variety and nuance among lighter-roasted beans.<\/span><\/p>\n

BOHEMIAN BEANS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Arabica\u2019s <\/strong>big caf\u00e9\/roastery at 9 Commercial Street is a casual Central Perk kind of hangout with a sofa and easy chairs, a crackling fire on chilly mornings, and plenty of table and bar seating. There\u2019s a raffish, industrial-warehouse charm, with brick walls, high ceilings, and a big roasting area way at the back. The original Arabica at 2 Free Street is equally boho, if smaller.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll our coffee is brewed in a drip machine,\u201d the barista says. My 12-ounce cup of French roast is $2.45. No pour-over here. \u201cPour-over is a whole other theory of making coffee,\u201d he says. \u201cYou pour a little water, you wait, you pour more. It\u2019s supposed to make a better cup of coffee, but one cup takes like five minutes to make. I could<\/em> never.<\/em>\u201d He rolls his eyes. \u201cBut that\u2019s just me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Arabica serves a caf\u00e9\u2019s worth of breakfast and lunch food, from Baker\u2019s Bench pastries, to house-made bagels, to panini and quiche. Buttered raisin toast for $2.50 is the perfect tiny treat.<\/span><\/p>\n

ORIGINAL GOOD GUYS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Coffee By Design<\/strong> can take credit for turning Portland into a serious coffee town. They showed up on Congress Street in 1994 before there even was an Arts District. From the outset, CBD committed to ethically grown beans at a shop that developed into a little empire with a reputation for coffee, responsible business practices, and supporting local artists and local causes.<\/span><\/p>\n

CBD is known for its consistency and for such popular house blends as Midnight Jazz, Black & Tan, and Alonzo Double Dark. Baker\u2019s Bench pastries and Holy Donuts are among the many treats offered. A 12-ounce cup of drip-brewed is $2.54.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like a lot of people don\u2019t realize we also offer single-cup drip,\u201d says Rosie Borden at CBD\u2019s caf\u00e9\/roastery at 1 Diamond Street in East Bayside. (Not all the smaller CBD shops have the option yet.) The 12-ounce single-cup is $3.51. \u201cIt\u2019s worth it\u2013it\u2019s a good, clean cup. I like light and medium roasts for this. They have more flavor notes\u2013fruitiness, nuttiness, citrus\u2013than dark roasts. But really, it\u2019s a preference thing, a taste thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At CBD on Congress Street, a barista notes that \u201ceven Starbucks has pour-over now. First it was cold-brew [the now-standard method for cold coffee drinks], and now it\u2019s pour-over. I guess it\u2019s the \u2018in\u2019 thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll find Coffee By Design coffee everywhere from the Hillside Coffee Shop<\/strong> and Katie Made<\/strong> bakery on Munjoy Hill to Coffee Me Up on Cumberland Avenue in Bayside to the Otherside Delis<\/strong> on Veranda and Vaughan streets, to name a few.<\/span><\/p>\n

WOOD-FIRED<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Matt Bolinger opened the Speckled Ax<\/strong> coffee shop at 567 Congress Street (pictured left) six years ago. He roasts his beans in South Portland in a wood-fueled roaster. The shop\u2019s an oasis from the noise and nuttiness outside, with chocolate-brown walls and mellow music.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe serve brewed coffee until 11 a.m.\u201d as a concession to people hurrying to work, presumably, \u201cand after that it\u2019s all pour-over,\u201d says barista Terrence Wolfe. The 10-ounce pour-over is $3.25; the beans tend to medium and lighter roasts. The snacks are quite choice. \u201cWe get our food from a number of sources\u2013some pastries are from Standard Baking and Little Bigs, and the cookies are from Night Moves. I pretty much have to have one every day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At Higher Grounds<\/strong> on Wharf Street, Speckled Ax coffee is drip-brewed. \u201cWe opened in October,\u201d says the server as he hands me a 12-ounce mocha java ($2.75). It\u2019s quite good, and the flavor expands as it cools.<\/span><\/p>\n

It says something about Portland that all these thriving and very local, often organic, and fair-trade shops coexist peacefully with Starbucks. You may eschew the corporate giant in favor of the local, but somebody must be drinking the stuff from Seattle, since there are eight Starbucks outlets in and around the city. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 2018
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