Sterling Coffee Roasters roasts its own coffee and serves it at its café in Northwest Portland, Oregon. Each coffee’s name carries its flavour, as in Peru Cerro Blanco: Tastes like Piña & Colada. The coffees come from Ethiopia, Kenya, Peru, El Salvador, Brazil and Colombia.

The signature coffee is Blendo Stupendo, a blend of Central and South American coffees roasted “to taste like the coffee our country grew up drinking”, with chocolate, caramel and a hint of toasted nuts. The Ethiopian and Kenyan coffees and the Peru Kovachii are roasted light, and the decaf, decaffeinated with the sugarcane process, is roasted a little longer for a more traditional, bold cup that works for drip, pour-over and espresso.

For brewing, Sterling suggests a 1:16 ratio of coffee to water for drip and pour-over. Its café aims for a 30-gram double espresso from 20 grams of ground coffee, or up to 35 grams with light roasts, extracted in 28 to 32 seconds. Coffee comes in 11-ounce, 2.5-pound and 5-pound bags, and Blendo Stupendo can be ordered as a subscription every week, two weeks or month.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Sterling Coffee