Sport – Fresh Pot

Keeping One Foot In Front The Other.

Michael Brooks — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:19:09 +0000

Is it really that time again? Summer has just flown by and with the last days of August comes the pain & pleasure explosion known as the Hood to Coast Relay.
197 miles. 1000 teams. 12 runners in two vans. And with us, enough coffee (both pressed and cold-brewed) to keep us up for 36 hours straight. This is our 4th (5th?) year running with our pals over at the roastery. The legs all tend to blur together at this point so the count could be a little off.

Van 1 is powered by the Stumpies. They have a crackerjack team with a pretty good mix of HTC veterans and newbies. Our buddy Skip will try to keep his quads from disintegrating as he checks off Leg 1 from Timberline. Van 2 is powered by the FP and friends. Our customers Jill and Amber keep us on our feet and from talking entirely about coffee. We’ll be making our way back to Portland sometime around midnight on Friday. Look for us — we’ll be under the Hawthorne bridge (with about 2,000 other people). After that, only two more legs and 90 miles to go!
If you see us creaking and limping behind the bar next week — now you know why…

Cupping With Aleco… and Softball.

Michael Brooks — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 11:15:05 +0000

The Fresh Pot is one of the oldest Stumptown accounts in the city. We’ve been serving Stumpy’s coffee since the cafe on Division handled the bulk of the roasting. Over the years we’ve witnessed plenty of changes and growth within the ranks of our fair roaster but one of the most impressive moves has been the addition of Aleco Chigounis — Director of Coffee for Stumptown. Aleco has been in the coffee business forever. His dad worked for Lacas Coffee Company in Philadelphia and Aleco spent some time there packing coffee and running deliveries. After a few stopovers in Costa Rica and L.A., he landed in Portland and immediately went to work.
Our long-running relationship with the Stumpies has its share of perks. The most recent one was an invitation to hang out in the cupping lab at Stumptown HQ with Aleco. There’s been a surge of recent arrivals from Latin America and Aleco wanted to give us his personal run-down on the new offerings.

And so on Wednesday, we met up at the cupping lab around the corner from the Divsion cafe for some time with Aleco. We cupped new offerings from Guatemala Finca el Injerto (an old standby and one of Stumptown’s longest running Direct Trade relationships), Panama Duncan Estate, Honduras Finca el Puente, Costa Rica Brumas del Zurqui (a fantastic example of a honey-process coffee), Ethiopia Michelle, the Kenya Ngunguru and the absolutely stellar Kenya Kangunu.
We spent over an hour cupping and discussing the flavor profiles and the back-stories of each coffee. My new personal favorite is the Brumas del Zurqui from Costa Rica — in fact, I’m polishing off a French Press of it as I write this. The new offering from Injerto once again proved that fantastic coffee is an achievement on many different levels. Aleco told us how a visit to Arturo Aguirre’s farm is a portrait of dedication and consistency. It’s an incredible cup and even dry on the table evoked a strong fragrance of jasmine — so awesome. We really appreciated our time with Aleco since he has so little of it to spare. Come Monday, he’ll be off on a plane to Indonesia.
Thanks Aleco!
We just wrapped up our second week in the summer softball league. So far, we are 0 – 2. But hey, we’re just slow starters and can you blame us when there’s beer involved? Our role models are a little more Bad New Bears than New York Yankees and in that light, we’re doing just fine. We certainly look like we know what we’re doing…

Let’s go team!

Trailblazers, coffee and you.

Michael Brooks — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:43:29 +0000

Yes. We made it through the holidays. The days are getting a little longer and you can almost see the sun for more than a couple of hours. Also, the Portland Trailblazers are doing well.
Our friend Nathan is also a Blazers fan and when he’s not working, record hunting or sleeping, he’s probably talking about the NBA. He also happens to run a collaborative ‘zine called “Fake Your Own Death“. A few months ago, he came to us with an idea for a Trailblazers themed art show. Katie and Morgan (our outgoing and incoming art curators) were into it. Nathan put the word out for submissions and lo and behold, an awesome Greg Oden portrait is hanging on our wall. Come check it out at the Fresh Pot on Mississippi before the month of January is over.
Also, our pals over at the Stumptown Roastery have just released a ton of new crop. We now have two new offerings from Burundi, five from Colombia, two from Rwanda and one from Kenya. Delicious. It’s especially nice to have the Colombia La Piramide since that is the farm that Vin (FP owner) was able to visit last year.
Also, if you have time this Sunday evening (January 31), come on down to Mississippi Studios (just down the block from the shop) for an anniversary show for FP North. The cafe opened its doors during the first week of February in 2002. We’ve had a great run (8 years) so far and we’d like to have a beer with you. Three bands featuring FP staff will be there to entertain you. It’s your chance to see us out from behind the counter.
Thanks!

Hood To Coast 2009…

Michael Brooks — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:45:59 +0000

Still catching up on blog posts – this one happened a few weeks ago. Once again, we managed to make the cut in the yearly lottery for the Hood to Coast Relay. This was our sixth go ’round and our third partnered with the crew at Stumptown. There was a lot of build up to this year. I had folks telling me that they wanted in a year in advance. Turns out, talk is cheap – when it came down to the last month we were scrambling to fill our spots.
One of our super duper regulars secured her spot in perpetuity – thanks Jill, and first-timers Morgan and Amber rose to the occasion, as well. Amber’s rallying cry of “I got this” became a team mantra by the end.
There were a couple of hiccups – our van got lost in the deadly Gresham Triangle, but otherwise the race went off without a hitch. We had ample amounts of delicious coffee with us (although the combo of too little sleep and food with too much coffee can do strange things to a body).
We had some great hook-ups this year: sweet hoodies from our pal Adam at Golden Rule Design, van usage from the boys in the band, and homemade energy bars from our next door neighbors at Moxie. Thanks!
We also saw the triumphant return of Rita and Jason to the ranks of HTC volunteers (the folks who tell you where to turn on your run) and a new addition to the crew – Alex. Thanks guys!
It was an awesome, if painful, experience all around and hopefully, we can do it again next year.