Duane Sorenson, the founder of Stumptown Coffee Roasters, is returning to the third-wave coffee world with Puff, an independent coffee company with a roasting facility in Portland, the Oregonian reports. "I miss roasting coffee," Sorenson told the paper. "I want to roast coffee. I miss turning on the coffee roasters and smelling the coffee all day long and working directly with the farms, and I pushed and pushed and went nuts with Stumptown."
Sorenson sold Stumptown to Peet’s Coffee parent company JAB Holding in 2015, and signed a non-compete agreement at the time. He tells the Oregonian that both Peet’s and Stumptown have given Puff their blessing.
When it opens in November, Puff will become part of the robust third-wave coffee movement that Stumptown helped lead when it launched in Portland in 1999. Sorenson says he plans to stay competitive and is open to growing Puff to multiple locations, as he did Stumptown.
The Puff roastery is currently under construction in a building behind Sorenson’s fried chicken and bourbon restaurant the Woodsman Tavern, one of several he’s opened in Portland since 2011. In addition to roasting coffee, Sorenson says Puff may host all-ages concerts and dance parties.
• With Puff, Stumptown founder Duane Sorenson returns to coffee world he helped create [The Oregonian]