Trip Report: Stumptown Coffee Roasters
Currently brewing and enjoying some Rwanda Musasa that I bought at the recently-opened Stumptown on Pine St. here in Seattle. I was a fan of the coffee shop that used to be where Stumptown now stands; it was called Aurafice and while I admit the coffee wasn’t very good, it had a scrappy, old-school independent shop feel that endeared itself to me.
The new shop is clean inside, almost to the point of sterility, but I see them adding new things every few days: painting on the windows, adding new shelves. To the right are some truly vintage home espresso machines that sit on the shelves above their whole bean coffees, which I thought were neat–I almost considered making them an offer on one. It promises to be a neat-looking little shop when they get it finished, and outlets are thankfully plentiful. (How sad is it that that’s one of the first things I check for? …after seeing whether the coffee’s any good of course.)
I don’t often drink Stumptown because while visiting their shops when I’m in Portland, I’ve found their coffees to be hit or miss. Some are great, such as their Mexican Chiapas, but I especially haven’t been a fan of their African coffees in the past. However, I visited this new one and upon seeing their Rwandan I decided to give it a try. Rwanda used to be rather hard to find, and the last time I tasted it was the last time I roasted some Maraba about two years ago, before I couldn’t get any more through my dealer. Now, Rwanda is becoming more and more of a player in the coffee-producing world, producing about 26,000 tons of coffee per year which comprise over 60% of total exports. This is a good thing, because I’ve long considered quality Rwandan to be one of the market’s most-overlooked coffees.
Fortunately, the Stumptown beans were superb. There were the notes of coffee blossom and mild hint of orange rind I expect to find in a top-shelf Rwandan, buoyed on a dark chocolate base. I may well have to change my formerly so-so opinion of Stumptown. There are some days I love being wrong, and this is one of them.
You mention flavor notes in the Rwandan coffee. How does one go about learning to identify such flavor notes, developing a palate, etc? I know the short answer is to just taste a lot of coffee. But as with wine (another learning project of mine), I find that answer insufficient.