Coffee roasters spy attempt - Oblique Coffee Roasters, Portland OR

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles"― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Hence, to roast a good cup of coffee, I need to try out and "know" all the different roasters!  Luckily, I live in Portland, Oregon where there are so many coffee shops and coffee roasters all over the town. I am in the middle of the coffee mania culture where the ocean's caffeine level is even higher!  (This is a fact based on National Geographic - Here is a link.)

I have been sneaking around for the past year in the enemy's nests, those coffee roasters, and I want to share my experience on the spy attempt to steal the best of the best approach to roast best coffee.

 I have been using a book called "Left Coast Roast: A Guide to the Best Coffee and Roasters from San Francisco to Seattle" to navigate around the town to find the best roasters.  This is actually a very fun toilet book for coffee lovers; it has lots of cool trivia about coffee, and the book lists a lot of good roasters on the west coast.  It has been quite fun to visit each of these coffee shops every weekend with a book in hand.   

Oblique Coffee Roasters, Portland OR (3039 SE Stark St, Portland, OR 97214 (503) 228-7883 Link)

I love the Belmont area of Portland.  The neighborhood is so alive with lots of young people hanging around in different coffee shops and food carts. (Portland is listed top 10 cities for food carts based on USA Today - Here is a link.)  Oblique Coffee Roasters is one of those neighborhood coffee shops that is full with energy of youth.  The shop is located in the middle of all the residential houses, and if you do not know that it is coffee shop, you would probably not notice when you pass by.

Oblique Coffee Roaster looks very cozy from outside

The inside is very homy environment with very nicely aged wood floor.   It somehow reminds me back my university library. There are some people having coffee and reading books, or be on their laptops; I think many are students.  Large size tables in the shop offer comfort for those who want to hang around being on laptops.

Inside Oblique Coffee Roaster, feels very homy

 I buy a cup of latte and a bag of their roasted coffee bag. (I love latte, so I want to be able to find and roast coffee that goes well with milk.)

This coffee shop was featured in the TV Show "Portlandia!".

The latte comes with nice art of leaf, and a bag of the coffee smells very mild.  Their coffee to me is lighter side of roast where the aroma is been preserved very well without much of bitterness.

There was only one bag of coffee beans left, and I noticed that the bag has "2/12" mark on the bottom.  It was February of 2015 when I was at the coffee shop.  I told the barista that the bean is too old, and she laughed and said that 2/12 means February 12, and not February 2012. Haha, how stupid of me.
It was in fact, very fresh roast of coffee.  I noticed that it took couple of days to reach the peak of aroma for me after purchasing it. (My earlier experience pays off to make me realize this.)

I had a good afternoon sitting around at the coffee shop being around folks in the shop. I recommend Oblique Coffee Roaster for a good cup of coffee in the afternoon on sunny Saturday to feel and experience the real local life of Portland.

My spy mission was a success!