18 | EDIBLE PORTLAND WINTER 2025 When we first moved to Portland, living only blocks from NE Alberta, we became regular customers at the Proud Mary Cafe. What drew us there was the coffee, the food, the service, and the ambiance. Nolan Hirte, the founder and owner, opened the Portland cafe in 2017. In the years since then, it has become tremendously popular with the Portland coffee crowd. Journalists reported stories about the coffee shop/cafe; a quick Google search tells the story. While visiting the cafe, we met Matt Lounsbury, the manager, with whom we engaged in an animated conversation, which resulted in an invitation to join him in a cupping. Having no idea what this meant, I was intrigued. Our cupping experience occurred at their roasting facility. We found ourselves in an industrial building on Portland's east side. Here is where the wizardry happens. To help us better understand how coffee roasting occurs, Matt introduced us to the Head Roaster for Proud Mary Coffee in Portland Victor Reyes. His chemistry degree informs his work, which involves complex and precise judgment. Lounsbury and Reyes explain how various coffee beans look before and after roasting. The green beans finish as light brown to dark brown, depending on the preferred roasts. The towering roasting machine has myriad moving parts and a computer screen. The moisture gets "cooked off as the beans pass through it." During this process, the roaster listens for loud pops indicating that the beans have reached the first crack stage. The rest of the roasting process depends on how light or dark you want your beans. The beans undergo chemical changes and break down as the process continues. Though the machine is monitored through a computer screen, there is no substitute for human eyes, ears, and noses. The roaster checks the aromatics and appearance as the roasting continues so that the beans reveal their profile and arrive at the desired perfection point. Some coffees take less time; others take more time. Green to dark, the roasting process brings coffee to a desirable smell and taste. We followed the two into the walk-in cooler, where Lounbury showed us stacks of bagged beans. He pointed to bags of specialty beans with high price tags, including bags for thousands of dollars. These small lots provide specialty beans for their cafe's $45 cup of coffee, which seems reasonable considering the entire process, from the growers to the roaster. Proud Mary Coffee wants to offer the experience of enjoying coffee at the highest possible levels, including heirloom varietals. The coffee's quality is promoted by the farmers' thoughtful preparation for shipping and protective transport practices with temperature-controlled holds and careful handling when they arrive. Loundsbury, an avid coffee drinker, watched the growth of the coffee industry, observing that American coffee drinkers have gone through three waves of coffee drinking. The first wave of coffee was the lowest quality; think Maxwell House, Folgers, or Yuban. Nobody talked about the country of origin, farm, or how the coffee was CUPPING WITH PROUD MARY By Deborah Trusty and images by Dean Cambray
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