Portland Roasting Coffee is Now Called Portland Coffee Roasters

The new-look bags from Portland Coffee Roasters, which was formerly known as Portland Roasting Coffee.

One of Portland, Oregon’s trailblazing specialty coffee companies, Portland Roasting Coffee has officially changed its name to Portland Coffee Roasters.

Not only does the name change eliminate some longstanding grammatical cloudiness, it also gave the 23-year-old brand a chance to refresh, as shown through a new logo, new, brighter packaging, a new color scheme and a more refined message about the company’s place in the coffee world.

“Our original packaging featuring coffee seedlings was subtle and never really stood out,” Mark Stell, Portland Coffee Roasters’ founder and managing partner, said in an announcement of the comprehensive rebranding today. “We updated our packaging to be bright and youthful, while telling the story of who we are and what we stand for.”

At Portland Coffee Roasters’ flagship Oak St. cafe. 2018 photo courtesy of Portland Coffee Roasters.

While an early practitioner of coffee’s modern “direct trade” movement, Portland Coffee Roasters built its reputation throughout the aughts and 2010s primarily through quality-focused wholesale relationships, although in recent years, the brand has been more prominently in view of consumers. After operating three branded locations at the Portland airport, the company opened its flagship brick-and-mortar cafe early last year. That was followed by another cafe in downtown Portland at the Pioneer Square Mall.

Bags on the shelves of all those places will now feature the hand drawings from Taylor Engel (of PCR) and Klay Arsenault that depict key stages in the seed-to-cup journey, including the coffee grower tending to plants, the roaster working through a batch, and the barista brewing the finished product.

“The doodle concept represents who we are as a company,” said Stell. “Doodles are fun and approachable; they are a genuine expression of human nature and creativity. The doodle theme of our new packaging meshes perfectly with the culture and personality of Portland Coffee Roasters — understated, accessible and unpretentious.”