Just on the fringes of the St. John’s neighborhood lies Cathedral Coffee. This welcoming spot is always bustling thanks to its expansive seating and floor-to-ceiling windows, which invite remote workers and students from the nearby University of Portland to spend hours relaxing and catching up on tasks. Cathedral just started roasting coffee in May of 2022, offering a wide array of quality-driven single-origin roasts with approachable names like Ruby Lemonade (a washed Yiuri, Kenyan) and Apple Crumble (Huila, Colombia). It all gets roasted out of the warehouse in St. Helens near the second cafe location in Scappoose, where the team bakes pastries for both cafes. It’s not uncommon to see the savory foldovers — a doughier panini riff — or a hearty quiche stuffed with bacon and roasted parsnips, sold out by noon.

Having once served as a coffee kiosk around the corner from its permanent location on Northwest 21st, Sterling Coffee Roasters has been a stalwart of this Alphabet District nook since 2009. The neighborly cafe’s elegant-yet-homey interior serves as the backdrop for employees and regulars to catch up over a range of light-roast single origins or a heartier blend, the go-to base for the everyday cappuccino. Those seeking something unique to Sterling may find luck with espresso flights or house-made syrups for chai and caramel-flavored beverages. As cafes have peeled back on retail offerings, Sterling’s own shelves remain stacked with plenty of merch and brewing accessories to use at home.

In the early years of Portland’s specialty coffee scene, Coava was among several roasters who paved the way for direct sourcing in the industry. From its humble beginnings in 2008 out of a motorcycle garage to its now widespread wholesale presence across the West Coast, Coava has maintained several of those early partnerships forged with coffee farmers to this day. Coava showcases these business relationships at their three locations throughout Portland through offerings labeled with producer names like David Mancia (Honduras) and Robinson Figueroa (Colombia). These coffees usually end up as espresso choices for milk drinks or drip coffee, which comes exclusively on pour over when ordered at the Eastside location.

Sisters Coffee Company is a large, Pacific Northwestern-chic space in the Pearl District with an expansive menu of sandwiches, pastries, and traditional espresso, coffee, and tea beverages. Sisters is simply a feel-good brand, whose flagship roastery proves to be a worthy stop on the drive between Portland and Bend. Patrons of Sisters will come to rely on the roaster’s Black Butte Gold and Sisters Blends for solid home brewing options, along with interesting single-origin offerings from micro-lot across regions like Timor Leste and beans direct from Igegania Cooperative in Kenya. Although it’s fairly easy to grab a bag of Sisters Coffee from surrounding grocery stores, the cafe is a destination for both Portland tourists and neighborhood locals. 

Also known as Super Joy Coffee, this cafe on the Southwest Park Blocks of Portland is frequented by the students of Portland State University and other locals for its meticulous approach to the science of coffee brewing. Owner Joe Yang’s various certifications of coffee excellence are posted along the walls of this otherwise humble space, including his status as a Q Arabica Grader, Certified Golden Cup Technician, Authorized SCA trainer, and first-place winner of the 2020 U.S. Roasters Championship. Many may recognize In J for the contact-free robotic arm they implemented during the onset of COVID-19, which hasn’t deterred its baristas from creating a welcoming, personable experience. Super Joy now has a sibling at the roasting-cafe facility on nearby Southwest Yamhill; both serve drinks with green coffee mostly sourced from Asia, and latte ingredients like osthmanthus, soy sauce, and taro.

Less and More serves lattes with Korean ingredients and exclusively cold house beverages out of a quaint downtown outpost near the Park Blocks. The space retains charming traces of the vintage bus shelter that once occupied it, for those who recall its iconic glass roofing and wraparound doors. Patrons on their way to the Portland State University Farmers Market or waiting for a bus on the adjacent corner can grab reliable espresso or drip coffee, with accompanying pastry selections from Bakeshop. But what they’ll also be happily surprised to find are plenty of creative non-coffee drink options, from ube steamers to milk tea and lattes flavored with ssuk, an earthy herbal Korean mugwort powder. 

This self-proclaimed “snob-free” coffee shop, with its sneaker-themed decor and secret menu, serves house roasts with names like Fresh Prince and Slow Jamz, listed with flavor notes of “fruity pebbles” or “cinnamon toast.” Customers can order any of the coffeeshop standards here, but some of the best drinks to order at the cafe are bold and experimental offerings like the summery Zero Chill, a blend of coffee and sweet tea, or the similar LeBronald Palmer, a blend of coffee, lemonade, and sweet tea. For more space to hang out and work, Concourse Coffee across the river is from the same owner and roaster, Ian Williams.

Push X Pull is a micro-roaster on Southeast Stark with an abundance of coffee and non-coffee beverages for everyone, with an emphasis on roasting beans as fresh as possible. Patrons ready to return to café days will want to spend hours in Push X Pull’s sleek, polished café space, which hosts a mix of industrial accents like polished concrete floors and maple, balanced out by an abundance of natural light and pastel colors. Home coffee drinkers will most definitely appreciate the brewing gear, range of coffee processing methods, and varieties for retail bags, with plenty of sweet natural coffees and niche varietals like orange bourbon, caturra, and anaerobic gesha. Other standout menu items include distinctive drinks like The Suzy, a latte with raw honey, Ceylon cinnamon, and Himalayan pink salt.

Proud Mary Coffee may hail from Australia, but it has solidified its status as a Portland go-to when visiting the Alberta neighborhood. Coffee drinkers shopping for beans to take home can choose between roasts described as “mild, wild, curious, and deluxe,” ranging from geshas to blends to single origin roasts. At the cafe, milk drink aficionados can find things like flat whites, piccolos, and mochas; black coffee lovers will find a full slate of V60 pour-over options, ranging from Cup of Excellence selections to 96-hour anaerobic catuai. There will always be an affordable drip coffee and at least two highly sought-after gesha options on the pour-over menu, a luxury coffee variety typically offered at a high price. It’s not uncommon to walk up to Proud Mary on a random Tuesday morning and find it jam-packed with urban brunch enthusiasts seeking an elevated avocado toast or a potato hash doused in bagna cauda.

Kopi Coffee House on Southeast Burnside sources its beans from various countries throughout Southeast Asia, including coffees from Vietnam, Indonesia, and Myanmar. The owners spent 15 years traveling and living abroad in this region, where they learned about coffee farming, and roast under the name Pagi Coffee Merchants. Visitors will be charmed by the Indo-Malay decor of the space; the DIY sloped-roof entrance welcomes patrons to an interior filled with traces of Indonesia, like imported carved columns and paintings of wayang puppet theater. The cafe menu is also packed with beverages that feature ingredients found throughout Southeast Asia, from Kopi Jahe, an Indonesian ginger coffee, to a take on Vietnamese iced coffee made with cold brew. Alongside these are traditional espresso beverages, loose-leaf tea from Jasmine Pearl, breakfast burritos from Higher Taste, and pastries supplied by Bee’s Custom Cakes.

With spacious greyscale interiors and sleek bar equipment, it may be a little intimidating initially to step inside Guilder; the portrait of Andre the Giant on the wall will calm the nerves within a few minutes. For home brewers looking to drink black coffee and compare tasting notes on retail bags, Guilder has packed shelves of bright and complex coffees from Latin America and Asia under the moniker Juniors Roasted Coffee. Alongside standards like cortados, filter coffee, and cold brew, the menu includes an impressive slate of vegetarian fare, from burritos to jackfruit vegan chicken salad. The storefront’s changing display of the daily market cost of coffee also exemplifies the company’s commitment to price transparency, as well as a livable wage for coffee producers. Guilder also operates a cafe within Powell’s main location.

Never Coffee Lab is a colorful brand with two locations, downtown and in Mount Tabor. While grappling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has gathered a very neighborly fan base, who doesn’t think twice about waiting 30 minutes to grab coffee on morning dog walks. The playful pastel-colored designs within Never’s cafe spaces are a tasteful pairing to its clean white walls, especially when juxtaposed with one of Portland’s countless gray or rainy days. Patrons will try to decide between inventive lattes flavored with ingredients like Cascade hops, saffron, and fennel seed, which come in stylish handmade ceramics or bottled to go with oat milk in tasteful amber glasses.

It’s hard to talk about coffee in Portland without mentioning Heart, whose owners have established somewhat of a cult following through its wholesale presence on the West Coast. Heart embodies everything intimidating about specialty coffee, but it’s hard to resist a brand that buys green coffee at near-perfect scores, highlights its fruitiest flavors at roast, and supplies a surplus of pastries sourced from a handful of local bakeries. For coffee connoisseurs who want a consistently solid drip option, Heart will never not have a bright, acidic single-origin in rotation, along with its menu of classic espresso-milk beverages — all steamed to the perfect temperature.