I had the wonderful opportunity a couple of weeks ago to visit Spella Caffè and its roastery in Portland and meet Andrea himself, owner and roaster of the Italian-style caffè and espresso. At the café, I can easily say I had the best pulled espresso shot of my life! The espresso was a rich and smooth one that started out bright and lively and finished creamy with notes of caramel and milk chocolate. No bitterness at all, just a rich, easy drinking cup with lots of crema. I also had a delicious affogato made with gelato from Eugene – the stracciatella, which was an amazing combo of chocolate chunks and creamy espresso.

I highly recommend this little cafè nestled in downtown Portland. It’s a quaint, small space that fits perfectly on the busy street of SW 5th Ave., especially if you’re in need of a quick pick me up, or just a short break from the city noise. Inside, you’ll feel like you’re stepping in a little bit of Italy, if only for a short time.

Before we headed over to the café, we had the chance to see where it all came from: the roastery. Here, we actually learned from Andrea the steps in roasting the perfect Italian-style espresso. Of course, some of the important details like roasting temperatures and times are left out. These are industry secrets that a roaster would never reveal, kind of like a traditional family recipe that grandma would never hand out.

Andrea told us it takes months and even years to get these details dialed in just right. Everything affects the roasting process, too. The weather outside including the temperature, the humidity, you name it. Roasters have little notebooks handy to jot down these notes, all of which looks like scribble-scrabble, but of course makes perfect sense to them. The actual coffee roaster, affectionately named Rossalina, was much smaller than I expected. Andrea says he is not a micro roaster, but rather a nano roaster. This is because “Rossalina” is capable of roasting only 11 lb batches of green beans at one time, producing 10 lbs of roasted coffee.

Most of the big coffee roasters roast hundreds of pounds at a time, which ultimately reduces the quality that comes out of the roasting process. For our first time at roasting, Andrea selected his Signature Espresso; a secret blend which he revealed has a base of Brazilian beans. After around 15 minutes or so, our batch of freshly roasted coffee was a beautiful milk chocolate brown with golden hues. Before it got to this stage, there was some temperature adjusting, some sampling, cracking of the beans and whala! Wonderfully roasted coffee! It cooled off and was bagged and ready to take home. Of course with espresso, it is usual to let the coffee “age” about three days to a week so that enough CO2 is released from the beans, for the best cup.

I learned so much from my first coffee roasting experience. It was a great time, and I now know so much more about the process of coffee and espresso from farming, to purchasing, roasting and the consumer. I hope you know a little more now, too!