More than a decade ago, Portland, Oregon’s Stumptown Coffee led the third wave specialty coffee movement, which focused on boutique, quality coffee over mass-production from brands like Starbucks. These days, Stumptown can be found in grocery stores around the nation, and has given way to the fourth wave. Coffee aficionados aren’t exactly sure what the larger fourth wave will look like, but in Portland, the focus is on education, supporting coffee-growing and coffee-consuming regions, an emphasis on “snob-free coffee,”and more people of color owning coffee shops that tap into their heritage. Portland, right now, might have one of the best coffee scenes in America.
“It's one of the best, which, as being in the business here, makes it extremely hard because it's very competitive,” says Augusto Carneiro, owner of Nossa Familia in Portland. “There's a lot of really good coffee.” In 2004, he started importing roasted coffee from his family’s farms in São Sebastião da Grama, Brazil. But back then, he had a difficult time receiving much press.
“We didn't fit the mold of most of the coffee articles,” he says.
Nossa has three shops–in The Pearl District, Central Eastside, and the Division/Clinton neighborhood—which serve flash brew coffee (aka Japanese iced coffee), housemade espresso chocolate whipped cream, pão de queijo (Brazilian cheese bread; Nossa's comes in waffle form), and the Brazilian specialty cafezinho, which Carneiro describes as a mini Americano. By now the city has embraced his coffee, which is now all roasted in-house. Carneiro believes in direct trade, meaning “we are visiting the farm and we know the farmer firsthand.” For him, the fourth wave is about highlighting education and making customers feel comfortable.
“I really see the importance of helping to educate, and never in a shaming way, but just helping, and enlightening the customers to how beautiful the world of coffee is,” says Carneiro, who wants his cafés to be judgement-free zones. “I remember going into cafes and feeling like I couldn't ask any questions, because I would be judged for not knowing. So when a customer comes in and they are a little shy and they want to know the difference between a latte and a cappuccino, or know the difference between a light and a dark roast, then we get to be their coffee hero, right?” Nossa Familia also donates one percent of their sales to local organizations and schools, and every winter Nossa hosts coffee trips to Guatemala–these trips are open to the public, but the shop also pays for their baristas and staff to go.
Like Carneiro, husband and wife Alberto Gomez and Adriana Lopez are Latinx immigrants working in specialty coffee. They moved to Portland from Mexico City in 2016. They have not always been coffee drinkers—but after visiting coffee farms in Mexico, they not only became consumers, but started roasting Mexican coffee as a hobby. In 2019, they founded Tostado Coffee Roasters. The roastery is located in Southeast Portland, at Buckman Coffee Factory. They’ve since evolved into selling their bags of Chiapas- and Oaxaca-grown beans in Portland supermarkets, online, at farmer’s markets, through pop-ups, and have spots like Dos Hermanos Bakery brew their coffee. Tostado doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar yet, because they want to “focus right now on the roasting,” Gomez says. “Owning a coffee shop is different; it's almost a different business. The dynamics are different. So we want to be really good at the coffee that we roast.”
They employ Indigenous women from Chiapas’s Tenejapa community to make colorful pom-poms that adorn the bags of beans. Another aspect of the company is to educate people on coffee’s supply chain and why coffee can be expensive. “Every time we talk to people here in Portland who want to know a little bit more about our coffee, we try to talk to them about the importance of knowing where your coffees come from, that what you're drinking is not coming out of [worker] exploitation,” Gomez says. “You're actually paying $5 for a cup of coffee because you're supporting the sustainability of coffee.”
Kim Dam’s specialty coffee company, Portland Cà Phê Roasters, is another marker of this fourth wave in Portland. She grew up in the Rose City but her parents emigrated from Vietnam. Before opening her Southeast Portland brick-and-mortar in 2021—Portland’s first Vietnamese specialty coffee house—Dam worked as a barista at Black Rock Coffee Bar, before moving into healthcare, then getting burnt out during the pandemic. In 2020 she began roasting coffee beans imported from Vietnam.
Despite the fact that Vietnam is the second largest coffee bean producer in the world, Vietnamese coffee hasn’t quite caught on in the U.S., mainly because the beans can sometimes be viewed as low quality, Dam says. “I buy coffee from Vietnamese farmers that have smaller lots, are family owned, and really care about the quality of their coffee,” Dam says. At her shop in Southeast Portland, Dam will hire baristas who don’t have coffee experience and teach them—partly because she remembers, as a novice barista, having trouble finding places that would train her.
“I've noticed some specialty coffee places now are not requiring experience and that they're happy to train,” Dam says. “And I see that more often in people of color-owned coffee shops.” The café offers cà phê sữa đá, which is the traditional Vietnamese condensed milk beverage American coffee drinkers are accustomed to, but also fun drinks like ube latte (add the cheese foam), coconut cream latte, espresso and tonic, and bánh mì from her family’s restaurant, The House of Bánh Mì. “Back in the day, around 2016, 2017, I just felt like you always had to get an eight-ounce latte, or pour-over,” she says. “If you were to order anything other than that at a coffee shop that serves specialty coffee, you were kind of judged. But it's 2022—everyone drinks coffee, so you should be able to give [customers] something that they want and will enjoy.”
Her coffee has proven to be so popular that she will soon open a second location. “My current shop is in such a weird area,” she says. “I'm not reaching all the demographics that I can. My next shop is going to be in Northeast Portland, and more central. Hopefully, after this Vietnamese coffee will be seen more in Portland, and not only from me.”
Here's hoping that momentum infects the entirety of Portland's fourth wave coffee shops—a wider changing of the tides feels imminent.
Other Portland coffee shops and brands to check out
Junior’s Roasted Coffee: Caryn and Mike Nelson operate the micro-roastery out of Guilder Café, a Princess Bride-themed eatery with two locations, including one inside Powell’s Books. Pair the veggie-based Inconceivabowl (get it?) with a shakerato (espresso, panela, and orange bitters), or the miracle pill (hot or iced latte with cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, vanilla, panela cold brew syrup, salt).
Heart Roasters: The roaster, founded in 2009 by Rebekah and Wille Yli-Luoma, has a couple of shops throughout Portland. They offer pour-overs, coffee slushees, and cardamom lattes, but Tostado’s Gomez likes keeps it simple when visiting: “Every time we try a new coffee shop, we always ask for the drip coffee because, for me, it’s the easiest way to taste a specific flavor,” he says. “At Heart, I will order the drip, and I really like their cold brew.”
Deadstock Coffee: Owned by Ian Williams, this spot doesn’t have a menu, and they don’t do pour-overs—hence their “snob-free coffee” motto—but they do offer flash brew and lattes. The shop also features artwork of famous Black people, and promotes the fact Portland is the sneaker capital of the world. “I always get a lavender oat latte from there,” Dam says. “I don't get it anywhere else, and I don't even make it at my own shop.”
Esperanza Trading Company, La Perlita, and Reforma Coffee Roasters: Angel Medina started roasting coffee out of his apartment in order to contribute money to DACA recipients, and in 2020 he founded Reforma. He also runs coffee shops La Perlita and Esperanza, and the award-winning restaurant República. The shops are known for their flash brew, conchas, and “true Mexican mocha” (topped with cacao nibs), brewed with coffee grown in Mexico. Or, get a shot of café de olla (a cinnamon-spiced coffee), or what Dam orders—the brown butter latte with oat milk.
Less and More Coffee: Ryan Jie Jiang channels his Chinese and South Korean roots at his shop located at a bus shelter on the transit mall in downtown Portland. His best seller is the tiramisu latte, topped with tiramisu cream. “Ryan is definitely one of the nicest people in specialty coffee,” Dam says, “and I think he has the same kind of ideas I do. He takes time to really talk to every one of his customers.” Dam will order the famous tiramisu latte, or her favorite, the espresso and tonic, which is garnished with orange peel and rosemary.
