The Selling of Stumptown Coffee Roasters
Posted by TheShot on 31 May 2011 | Tagged as: Café Society, Foreign Brew, Roasting
It’s a good thing we’re no longer monitoring signs of the impending Apocalypse. But in perhaps yet another sign that quality coffee is at the end of a Golden Age, rumors today of a Stumptown Coffee Roasters buyout: Stumptown Sold Out – The Selling of Stumptown Coffee Roasters – Esquire.
Unlike the article’s author (and La Colombe staple), Todd Carmichael, we’re not exactly taking the news as reason to mourn the death of a coffee great. Despite the very un-Portlandia image of such a Wall Street buyout, a Stumptown ownership change is perhaps less of a sad loss for the quality coffee world and more of a necessary step in its progressive legitimization.
Mr. Carmichael calls Stumptown’s founder, Duane Sorenson, “the Che Guevara of the rock-star barista movement.” Coincidentally, today Mr. Guevara is known far more for his T-shirt iconography than for his political treatises. Similarly, Stumptown helped usher in the era of the Clover brewer, only for Clover to sell out to Starbucks less than two years later — ultimately inspiring today’s throwback to decades-old pour-over brewing technology.
Any reasonably successful counter-cultural movement ultimately gets co-opted by the mainstream as part of its natural evolution. And if the rumors are indeed true, Mr. Sorenson has busted his tail for many years and has earned a break. Should we feel sad?
Eight years ago, we lamented the demise of Torrefazione Italia when it sold its soul to Starbucks. And yet out of those ashes, two employees who met while working at a San Francisco Torrefazione Italia, Eileen Hassi and Jeremy Tooker, would soon go on to found Ritual Coffee Roasters. Ritual, and later Mr. Tooker’s Four Barrel Coffee, would play instrumental roles as San Francisco experienced one of the greatest quality coffee booms in its history. Instead of lamenting the end of the coffee world as we know it, a la Family Radio International, perhaps a better model is the Hindu god Shiva — who simultaneously plays roles as both the destroyer and the creator of the universe.
ADDENDUM
Meanwhile, Mr. Carmichael received some interesting coverage today in his hometown paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer: Haiti’s incredible coffee | Philadelphia Inquirer | 05/31/2011. Did you know that Haiti grew 45% of the world’s coffee back in the 1800s?
UPDATE: June 1, 2011
The plot thins?: Founder still owns Stumptown Coffee | OregonLive.com. (Also this.)
UPDATE: June 5, 2011
…and yet thickens once again: Rumors of Stumptown Coffee Sale Gain Strength | An Exploration of Portland Oregon Food and Drink ; Stumptown Coffee Has Been Sold, Industry Sources Tell WW.
5 Comments »
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/stumptown-expands-with-the-help-of-a-powerful-investor/#more-55751
The latest:
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-17590-the_selling_of_stumptown.html
There’s something strangely naïve about some of the reaction to this whole thing. Some folks are in full shock-and-awe mode, incredulous that someone like Stumptown could “sell out”.
It’s like watching a kid come to terms with the death of their first household pet.
Some people, rather than having an actual personality, define themselves by their consumer preferences, so when one of their favorite brands “sells out,” it’s like having a nervous breakdown.
If there’s anything wrong with the sale, it’s that Duane is being so evasive about it. At this point, it seems clear that he sold 90% of the company. Dancing around that fact is dishonest. Customers ought to be able to know what they’re buying, especially as Stumptown built their reputation largely on the ideal of economic fairness and transparency.
Couldn’t agree with you more on all counts.