Open today · 7:00 to 16:00

A quiet corner for coffee, ❧ cardamom buns, and slow mornings.

A specialty coffee roaster and plant-based bakery on North Mississippi Avenue, Portland. We roast on Tuesdays, bake every morning before dawn, and brew everything by hand.

Barista pouring latte art into a cortado at the counter
Est. 2019
Portland · OR
Baking · 06:48 am
6 yrsServing the neighborhood
14Single-origin beans this year
100 %Plant-based pastry case
0 · 5Illustrative rating · demo site
Barista hands preparing an espresso
A cardamom bun on a ceramic plate, close-up
Our story

Opened on a wet Tuesday in February 2019.

Hemlock & Honey began in Marin and Noor's apartment kitchen, with a used Probat sample roaster, a pound of Yirgacheffe, and one line in the newspaper telling the neighbours we were open on Saturdays.

Six years later we are still on the same block. Marin roasts the coffee. Noor bakes the pastry. Our seven-person team pours every drink by hand, by the cup, slowly.

"We are not here to be a fast third-wave coffee shop. We are a very slow bakery that also happens to serve really good coffee."
The roastery

Three beans we're pouring, every week this October.

We roast every Tuesday on a 6-kilo Probat, in small batches, mostly medium. Rested seven days before we pour it. Bagged within three weeks of the roast date, always.

Freshly roasted single-origin Yirgacheffe beans
Washed · Ethiopia

Yirgacheffe Konga

BergamotHoneysuckleSoft black tea
22 · 340g
Add to bag →
Coffee cherries drying on a natural process patio
Natural · Colombia

El Vergel, Sidra

Red cherryFig jamMilk chocolate
26 · 340g
Add to bag →
Hands cupping freshly roasted coffee beans
Washed · Guatemala

Finca La Soledad

CaramelMacadamiaCocoa
21 · 340g
Add to bag →
What we care about

A short list, in order of how we think about them.

We've been running the shop long enough to know what matters. Everything else is just extra chairs.

i

People, first.

Our seven baristas have been with us an average of 3.2 years. We pay 24 USD an hour before tips, and we close for a full week in July.

ii

Farms, by name.

Every bag in the shop names the farm, the processor, and the altitude. We buy direct from three producers, every year, by hand-shake, by phone, in Spanish.

iii

Pastry, by hand.

Noor and her two-person pastry team roll every bun, laminate every piece of dough, and candy every orange. There is no mixer bowl big enough to cheat.

Journal

Slow reading, from the roastery.

Close-up of a Probat drum coffee roaster in action
Roasting
8 min read

Why our medium never tastes "roasty"

A field note on development time ratio, the mistake we made in year two, and the Probat we bought on Craigslist for 2 800 dollars.

A cardamom bun on a ceramic plate, mid-process
Pastry
6 min read

Noor's cardamom bun, step by step

Our most-ordered pastry since the day we opened. The recipe, the fold, the temperature, the mistake we made for six months.

A coffee farm at harvest, Fresno, Tolima, Colombia
Trip
12 min read

Four days at El Vergel, Colombia

Marin's travel notes from a week with the Bayter family in Fresno, Tolima. The farm, the people, the Sidra, and the long drive back.

Say hi

Come sit with us.

Open hours

Monday & TuesdayClosed · we're roasting
Wednesday & Thursday7:00 — 15:00
Friday7:00 — 16:00
Saturday & Sunday8:00 — 16:00
Address

4201 N Mississippi Ave
Portland, OR 97217

Say hi

hi@hemlockhoney.co
503 · 744 · 2160

Illustrative map view of the North Mississippi Avenue block (demo image, not a live map)
We're here · N Mississippi

Three roast dates ahead of everyone else.

One email, every Monday morning. The three coffees we're pouring, the pastry we baked over the weekend, one short note from the roastery. Easy opt-out.