The Story
Stumptown Coffee Roasters is a coffee roaster and retailer based in Portland, Oregon, United States. The chain’s first location opened in 1999.
Picture it: ‘99, Duane Sorenson, a guy who bled caffeine, sized up Portland and said, Nope, this won’t do.
With a beat-up roaster and zero patience for mediocre brews, he planted his flag in Portland’s scrappy southeast. A nod to the city’s old-school rep—those stubborn tree stumps left behind by loggers.
Our flagship cafe opened on Division Street in 1999, replacing an old beauty parlor named Hair Bender. Stumptown-founder Duane Sorenson adopted the name for our signature espresso blend and the original sign still hangs in our hometown roastery.
Founder Duane Sorenson and Stumptown Coffee Roasters have been labeled as part of the third wave of coffee movement. Sorenson and his employees visited coffee farms in person and reportedly paid high prices for beans, occasionally three or four times the fair trade price.
He once set the record for highest price ever paid for coffee beans. From the beginning, Sorenson’s approach was revolutionary—while others chased scale, he prioritized quality and direct relationships with producers.
The brand’s evolution reflects coffee’s changing landscape. In 2011, Stumptown sold a majority stake in the business to TSG Consumer Partners LLC, a private equity firm.
When Stumptown Coffee Roasters sold a majority stake to Peet’s Coffee in 2015, many in the specialty coffee world braced for the worst.
Stumptown is owned by Peet’s Coffee, which in turn is owned by Keurig Dr Pepper. Today, Three other cafes, a roastery and a tasting annex have since opened in Portland, as well as locations in Seattle, New York, and Pasadena.
Sourcing & Relationships
From the beginning, it’s been critical to us that we know where our coffee is coming from—the farms, the people, and the regions. Stumptown founder Duane Sorenson pioneered this approach in 2003 when he began our foundational direct relationship with the Aguirre family of Finca El Injerto, whose coffees are, to this day, vital and beloved menu offerings.
Other early Direct Trade partners include Los Delirios (Nicaragua), El Puente (Honduras), and Bella Vista (Guatemala), and we’ve steadily grown our relationship network over the last fifteen years.
For clarity’s sake, here’s what we mean when we say Direct Trade. Direct Trade is built on three principles: pay strong prices tied to quality; work with producers we know, so we have transparency into their side of the supply chain and they have transparency into ours; and maintain those relationships over many years, striving to build truly collaborative partnerships.
Stumptown pays price incentives directly linked to a coffee’s quality, which we determine based on the internationally accepted Q-Grading methodology––providing a framework and transparency to both parties.
The numbers underscore their commitment: In 2024, over 90 percent of all the coffees Stumptown purchased were through Direct Trade relationships of three or more consecutive years.
In addition, 100% of our purchases were verified by Enveritas––an international non-profit organization that specializes in the monitoring and evaluation of coffee supply chains across 30 different sustainability criteria.
We don’t call them farmers, we call them producers, giving credit to the fact that they are the production experts. They are the ones who make this coffee great. They are the ones who go the extra mile for quality.
Roasting Philosophy
The coffee will never get any better in quality once it lands in our hands, after all. A good roaster works tirelessly to preserve that coffee’s inherent greatness. This preservation mindset defines Stumptown’s approach—rather than imposing a house style, they aim to highlight what makes each coffee unique. At Stumptown, roasting is done with precision and care. The company uses state-of-the-art roasting equipment to ensure consistency and quality. Each batch of coffee is roasted to highlight its unique characteristics, whether it’s a single-origin coffee or a blend.
Stumptown doesn’t just crank out beans on autopilot. Nope—it’s more like a science experiment, but tastier. Small batches, tweaking everything—heat, airflow, timing—just to unlock what’s hiding in those beans.
Stumptown’s roasting process is designed to highlight the distinctive qualities of each coffee variety. Their experienced roasting team brings over 121 years of collective knowledge to perfect each roast.
Typically, our blends are more medium roast and our single origin coffees are on the lighter end of the Spectrum. We don’t add any flavorings to our coffee. We use tasting notes on our packaging and on our website as a way for us to describe nuances in each coffee, noticing things like Brightness, sweetness and body. Their roasting spans light to dark, but always serves the coffee’s inherent character rather than masking it with roast development.
What to Try
The sweet, balanced coffee that started it all. Hair Bender is Stumptown’s signature espresso blend, featuring notes of citrus, dark chocolate, and raisin that shine across every brew method.
Hair Bender takes its name from a long-shuttered beauty parlor that once housed the first Stumptown café. It was the original blend introduced by founder Duane Sorenson, and its core structure has remained unchanged ever since.
Our most complex espresso blend, Hair Bender brings together coffees from Central and South America, East Africa, and Indonesia. Guided by our quality team and roasters, this global sourcing creates a balanced, harmonious cup with notes of citrus, dark chocolate, raisin, and subtle floral sweetness.
Among their single origins, Guatemala El Injerto Bourbon — Our light roast coffee. Bright, clean, and lively with stone fruit sweetness. represents their longest-running Direct Trade relationship. Like Colombia El Jordan, which delivers syrupy cherry, dark chocolate, and baking spice from the lush highlands. Colombia El Jordan hits that sweet spot—full-bodied with notes of caramel, red fruit, and subtle spice. For something different, Indonesia Bies Penantan — This is a light/medium roast. Layered and aromatic, with warm spice and deep sweetness.
The company was an early innovator with cold brew coffee in nitro cans and have continued to develop other cold brew product innovations.
Stumptown’s Hair Bender Nitro Cold Brew delivers a creamy nitro body with the chocolatey punch of our signature blend—ready to sip straight from the can. Whether you’re exploring their foundational blends or seasonal single origins, every coffee tells the story of Stumptown’s commitment to quality and the producers who make it possible.