Beer and beans and bicycles

Well, today didn't bring any real adventures, but we did do some cool stuff. :)

Paul made an amazingly delicious tortilla soup that we got to enjoy for lunch. I've never even had soup this good at a restaurant. It was awesome... and really pretty. :)


After lunch we hopped on our bikes and headed back over to the Belmont neighborhood. We stopped in for a beer at Green Dragon, which is a semi-divey but enormous bar. This place will be a blast in the summertime - they have a huge patio with a BBQ and basketball hoops. Only a few more months til warm weather!


After that we headed over to the Stumptown Annex for their 3pm cupping. I knew this was a coffee tasting, but I had no idea how involved it was going to be. I was very pleasantly surprised.

They do these tastings daily, and we happened to show up on a day when they were also using this tasting to train staff - we were pretty much the only non-Stumptown employees there. This brought one major perk. Today, in addition to their usual rotation, we were also able to taste their ultra-fancy Panama Esmerelda batches. We have been dying to know what this tastes like forever, since the beans cost $95 per 8 oz. bag. Yeah, $95 for a bag of coffee beans. I don't know who can afford to drink coffee like that.

The set-up began with eight different whole bean varietals, each with three cups in front.


When we were ready to begin, they came around and sent all the beans in the white cups through the grinder and set them back out so we could smell them all, and get a sense for the nose. They use three cups of each type of bean so that any defective or unripe beans in a batch can be identified more easily, as it would only show itself in one of the cups and would smell/taste different than the other two. This is the same process Stumptown goes through when deciding whether to buy a particular batch or from a particular farm.

The next step was adding just-below-boiling water to each cup. Once each cup had a moment to extract, we went around again to smell each cup. The nose on each cup changed dramatically in just this step.


Paul taking a whiff. :)


We also smelled each cup again after breaking the grounds on the surface with the back of a spoon, which produced a whole new explosion of aromatics. It's pretty amazing how each little step really changes the characteristics of the beans. Once it was actually time to taste, I must say I had a whole new level of appreciation for the coffee, since I was able to get to know each varietal first (is that silly?). And in case you're wondering - the Panama Esmerelda was AMAZING. I have never ever ever tasted anything like it. If we could afford to drink coffee like that, trust me, it would be worth every single penny. Wow.

They also have a pretty impressive collection of coffee-making gadgets, from press pots to vaccuum pots to vintage thingamajigs.


So, the best part about this awesome coffee experience is that it's FREE! Boy do I love that. We are thinking it would be a fun thing to do when our family is in town for Christmas. Family, I know you're reading... what do you think?

Now all hopped up on caffeine, we headed to a crazy event called Bike Craft. I love craft shows, and Paul loves cycling... Bike Craft was seriously like our worlds colliding. It was great!

Our first clue that we were getting close was the endless rows of parked bikes. Every single bike rack, tree, and sign post in a three block radius had a bike locked to it. It was quite the gathering.




It was actually pretty fun to be amongst so many cyclists - it felt like we were a part of something big. Especially when a pedestrian walking by us took off her headphones and asked us what the #$@% was going on. She didn't get it. :)

And I totally fell in love with these panniers. The designer (Queen Bee Creations) had a booth at the show with these lovely winged bags. I want!


So today was a good day! It is, however, the conclusion to my weekend... back to work tomorrow. :(

Only two more weeks until family is here!!

Love,
Jenny