Mr. Greenbean, Portland - Buying Green Beans from Local

Finding green beans, un-roasted coffee beans, is harder than I thought.  Even we see roasted coffees everywhere, we don't see green beans in grocery stores.  My first roasting experience used green beans I got from Amazon called Costa Rica Dota Estate, Green Unroasted Coffee Beans (1 LB Nectar).  It was very good, and I loved the convenience of buying online, but I wanted to see if I can find them local.   So I looked up, and realize how great I am to be in Portland area where there is a DIY Coffee Roastring Equipment Store around the corner: Mr. Greenbeans (3932 N. Mississippi Ave Portland, Oregon 97227 Link).

Mr. Greenbeans

Mr. Greenbeans is located on busy pedestrian street of Mississippi Ave.

Mr. Greenbeans is located on a busy pedestrian street of Mississippi Ave. in North Portland where there are many "mom and pop" shops, bars and restaurants are.  You see people walking all the time around here, and there are some great food carts like Tiffin Asha (my favorite Indian fusion -- if you haven't tried it, I recommend)  make it a very vibrant area to hang out day or night.

Coffee lover's heaven inside.

Once you go inside, you notice that this is a heaven for coffee lovers.  It is not a large shop, but nice ambiance with hardwood floor make the entire place look very bright, and each items presented in the store are all about coffee. Yes, coffee!  They have different home coffee rosters and have a dedicated shelf just for coffee filter.  

In front of the store, there is a nice display of greens, and they display different package with different roast level from green to brown; they are artistically presented and you immediately see visual of how roasting change the color of beans.

All the way back the store, shelves of green beans reside. Three shelves  are dedicated just for green beans (wow).  They color-code the region so that you see beans grown in similar regions to have the same color; South America is orange and Asia is green and so on.    The person at the shop was expert in coffee roasting, and I had a very nice chat with him.   He says that there are different taste trend based on region where African coffees usually have high fruity taste.  I have purchased couple of ones from his suggestion; one from South Africa (the fruity one) and one from South America (the other end of spectrum of fruitiness).

I will be writing about my experience of roasting these coffee soon, but meanwhile if you are lucky to be in Portland and you are home roasting, checkout Mr. Greenbeans you are going to simply love it.