Unpacking Coffee with Kandace and Ray: Upper Left Roasters

Needmore Designs photo.

In today’s episode of Unpacking Coffee, a chat with fellow Portlanders Katherine Harris, a co-founder and co-owner of roastery cafe Upper Left Roasters, and designer Adam Garcia, who’s helped lead Upper Left’s branding from the beginning.

While the company’s name references the Pacific Northwest, it’s also a reference to the shop’s prominent place in the wagon-wheel-shaped Ladd’s Addition neighborhood, where Upper Left opened for business nearly three years ago.

Needmore Designs photo.

In conversation with Kandace and Ray, Harris and Garcia make clear the company’s dedication to detail both in programming and branding in order to present a shop that faithfully represents the surrounding neighborhood, the city of Portland and the PNW at large, while also leaving plenty of light-filled room for patrons.

“[There’s] something about the tone of the brand, and the experience with the service and the feeling that people get when they walk away from it, and they have nothing but great energy,” Garcia told K-Ray. “To me, that’s what’s really cool about the brand and the potential of it.”

Unpacking Coffee is a show discovering new coffee roasters one episode at a time led by Kandace and Ray of the Portland-based studio Needmore Designs, which specializes in coffee, wine and lifestyle brands.