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Emilly Prado
Emilly Prado is a writer, award-winning journalist and consultant living in Portland. Read More
Portland Coffee
Portland's passion for fine ingredients and careful craft extends to your next favorite cup of coffee.
Coffee may rank right up there with rain, bicycles and evergreens for what locals and travelers most associate with the city of Portland. For decades, the Portland coffee community has kept folks caffeinated with a mix of independent roasters and small cafés, each brewing up espressos, Americanos and lattes with beans from around the world. And if you know where to go, you can get a mugful of the scene’s rich history for yourself. Use our curated guide to find some of the best coffee in Portland.
Origins of Coffee in Portland
While the drink’s inception dates back to Ethiopia around A.D. 800, the Portland coffee scene has its own rich history, stretching back to the 1800s, when coffee merchants first brought the iconic beverage to the city.
First and Second Wave Coffee
The first wave, driven by mass production, made coffee an everyday staple. Instant coffee brands like Folgers proliferated, but Portland’s coffee legacy was artisan from the start, with Boyd Coffee Company selling freshly roasted beans from a horse-drawn wagon in 1900. This beloved institution remained local for over a century until its 2017 acquisition.
The second wave, emerging in the 1970s, shifted beyond convenience and toward experiential. While simple black coffee still reigned, espresso drinks like sweet lattes and social coffee shops boomed. Portland’s Kobos Coffee was our first micro-roaster, pioneering small-batch roasting and eventually operating six storefronts until closing in 2016. Meanwhile, Seattle-made Starbucks may claim a global empire with Rose City satellites, but sources say Portland is officially the top coffee city in the nation today!
Third Wave and the Future of Coffee in Portland
Portland’s coffee scene remains at the forefront of innovation. Since 1999, Stumptown Coffee Roasters has led the movement toward craft coffee, bridging the second wave’s focus on experience with the third wave’s emphasis on high-quality roasting methods and ethical sourcing. Light and medium roasts rose in popularity. Direct-trade and single-origin beans became the industry standard, and the focus was back on the flavor of the coffee itself. Decorated baristas, manual techniques like pour-overs, cuppings and brew demonstrations abounded.
Some say Portland is pioneering a fourth wave today by expanding experimental brewing and stripping away elitism with unique café concepts like Deadstock Coffee (elevating sneaker culture alongside espresso) and Portland Cà Phê Roasters (showcasing Vietnamese-grown beans).
No matter the wave or the standards you use to determine what is high quality, you’ll never go wrong with coffee in Portland.
Find the Best Portland Coffee Shops
Portland’s status as a top city for coffee means you’ll find excellent coffee shops all across town.
Portland Coffee Crawl
Visitors will find Portland’s bean scene as abundant as it is diverse. In fact, you don’t have to travel far to sample some of the best cups. Here’s a short list that’s bound to get you buzzing.
Downtown and Central City
Case Study Coffee
Just across the street from the Multnomah County Central Library and a short walk from the Portland Art Museum, Case Study Coffee is the perfect place to hunker down on a winter’s day. Not only will the beautiful wood-paneled interior and many windows keep you feeling cozy, but the in-house roaster and stellar gourmet mochas (with house-made syrups highlighting fine ingredients) can also help bring your body temperature up a degree or two.
Deadstock Coffee
Deadstock Coffee pays tribute to sneaker culture and basketball history. Like a true sneakerhead, sip a cup of “snob-free” coffee while perusing their collection of rare Air Jordans and vintage NBA memorabilia. If you’re lucky, you may also get a floating sneaker as your latte art. Then, celebrate your fortune at the nearby Lan Su Chinese Garden — or shop for some new-to-you kicks at INDEX.
Kilo D’Cofi, aka KDC
Opened in 2024, Kilo D’Cofi is a proudly immigrant-owned business offering Mexican coffee to-go from a sleek kiosk-sized shop. Try espresso drink staples with Mexican twists like the Horchai (chai made with horchata) or the viral Cookie Cortado, which is almost exactly like it sounds: a cortado served in a cup-shaped cookie!
Credit: Emilly Prado
Roseline
Since 2012, this small-batch roastery has provided consistently delicious coffee to cafés and shops across the city. Enjoy a cup (or grab a bag of beans) or nosh on their tasty pastries and light fare. Boasting six shops in the Portland area, the NE Davis location is the flagship location.
Sterling Coffee Roasters
This small but mighty shop excels in serving meticulously crafted coffee with care and a side of educational enthusiasm. Coffee aficionados should order Sterling’s espresso flight, or opt for a go-to staple like the richly balanced dark chocolate mocha.
Stumptown Coffee Roasters
Last but certainly not least, Portland’s most famous coffee export has four beautiful, bustling locations around the city. Check out their largest location and enjoy a rotating art gallery courtesy of their artist fellowship. Find more than a dozen locally roasted single-origin and blended roasts lining the shelves, including the company’s most popular, the aptly named Hair Bender. Grab a bag of whole beans or sample a select few via single-cup pour-overs from the bar.
North and Northeast Portland
Cathedral Coffee
Known for its fantastic coffee and espresso drinks made from locally roasted beans and seasonal offerings like apple cider cold foam and honey lavender lattes, Cathedral also serves stellar pastries from La Provence. Their artsy, spacious dining room is the icing on the cake, but we recommend taking your coffee to go and making the short pilgrimage to St. Johns’ awe-inspiring Cathedral Park.
Extracto Coffee Roasters
Along with roasting their single-origin espresso in small batches, Extracto is known for crafting expertly made espresso drinks and foam art. Check them out to caffeinate before a walk admiring the Alberta Art District’s bountiful murals.
Futura Coffee Roasters
A sleek coffee shop popular with remote workers, Futura offers a beautiful ambiance matched by an equally palatable menu. Pair your cappuccino with fresh pastries like the heavenly morning bun, and check its Instagram for occasional community events like poetry readings.
Prince Coffee
This cozy woman-owned café doubles as a natural wine bar with a rotating female-focused curation. When it comes to coffee, you can’t go wrong with a classic like an Americano or flat white, but we love the breadth of Dutch-influenced house-made syrups and the menu darling, the anijsmelk latte, inspired by a traditional Dutch drink. Delicious meals and snacks are available all day, like the tower of potato chips with prosciutto and, on weekends only, freshly made stroopwafels.
Proud Mary Coffee
This popular Aussie chain has only two U.S. locations, one of which resides in Portland and serves fine coffee, all-day breakfast and lunch offerings, high-end tea, fresh juice, smoothies, cakes and pastries. They use fresh, ethically sourced ingredients, and their inch-thick pancakes are worth the hype.
Southeast Portland
Carnelian Coffee
This quirky, colorful coffee shop in the Foster-Powell neighborhood offers micro-roasted specialty coffee, abundant pastries and vegan options to boot. Immerse yourself in the atmospheric world of rock and gem displays alongside deliciously brewed beans, and try their signature drink special, the Thunderegg — a subtly sweet and chocolatey latte, also available as a Dino Egg (a larger portion, optionally served over ice).
Coava Coffee Roasters
Owner Matt Higgins started making his artisanal brews in his garage in 2008. Today, you can try Coava’s award-winning single-origin coffees at one of their locations throughout the city. Grab a bag of beans, sip an espresso drink or try a coffee flight to experience everything they offer.
Nossa Familia
Nossa Familia uses a Loring roaster — the most environmentally friendly roaster available — and proudly offers a wide variety of roasts using beans from family farms in Brazil and around the world. They have three shops in Portland and excel in specialty international coffee-making techniques, including the Japanese flash brew method for iced coffee and the traditional bite-sized Brazilian cafezinho.
Portland Cà Phê
This Vietnamese woman-owned coffee roaster specializes in single-origin coffee grown in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Portland Cà Phê’s two locations offer a rainbow assortment of seasonal specials with unique flavors like rose cold foam vanilla lattes and ice einspänners. Locals love their mainstays like the decadent coconut cream latte and a house bánh mì.
Water Avenue Coffee
The father-son team behind the eastside roaster Water Avenue has a longstanding history with coffee: Owner Bruce Milletto spent a lifetime shaping the industry as a Specialty Coffee Association of America “Coffee Luminary.” He opened the American Barista and Coffee School in 2003 alongside his son Matt Milletto, who has also served as president of the Oregon Coffee Board.
Mentioned Elsewhere Online
Eater Portland
Portland Monthly
Plus, Portland Tea
While Portland is renowned for pioneering craft coffee, we’d be remiss not to mention that we should also be known for another specialty: locally made teas.
Numerous household names were started in Portland, from Stash to Tazo, but Steven Smith Teamaker remains dedicated to small-batch goodness. This Portland tea company was founded in 2009 and is known for its high-quality tea sourced from plants across the globe, and its unique blends. Stop by one of their shops in Nob Hill or the Central Eastside to sample a tea flight. Surrounded by nature and meticulously crafted gardens, find curated tea and small bite pairings at the Umami Teahouse inside the Portland Japanese Garden. In Old Town, try the Yun Shui Teahouse at Lan Su Chinese Garden, where their resident tea ambassador can walk you through a Gaiwan tea service and over 20 different tea varieties sourced from China and local makers.
Credit: Jonathan Ley
For a cozy tea house experience, The Tao of Tea on Belmont has been a community staple since 1997. It is known for its exclusive focus on loose-leaf varietals and some of the best chai in town. Whether you’re stopping into the original teahouse or the neighboring retail shop, The Leaf Room (which boasts over 200 blends), both emphasize sharing the many cultures of tea and the origins of their drinks with guests.
If you’re overwhelmed by Portland’s budding boba tea scene, might we recommend Soul-Cie-Tea? This bubble tea haven on Southeast Division boasts ceremonial-grade matcha, dozens of tasty milk and fruit tea options, and small bites. The layered Strawberry Matcha Milk Tea, made with fresh strawberry puree, is as delicious as it is beautiful.
High Tea in Portland
Treat yourself to the finer things — enjoy high tea at these Portland eateries.
Portland Drinks
Portland brews up the best beverages — explore more delicious options.
Chai in Portland
This guide to Portland chai includes an abundance of house-brewed local brick-and-mortar options and those carrying Portland-made chai blends and concentrates.
Boba Tea in Portland
From tapioca pearls and popping boba to cheese foam and jelly, boba tea in Portland is a big hit. Here’s how to find your new favorite drink in the Rose City.
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