A World of Influences Converges at Cosmopolis Coffee in Portland

Cosmopolis Coffee in Portland, Oregon. Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.

Down mountains, from port to port, through cities and countless hands, coffee passes through myriad cultures and walks of life on its way to the cup. Embracing that diversity is a new Portland, Oregon, coffee shop called Cosmopolis Coffee.

Terracotta tile made in Mexico lines the front of the shop’s white quartz-topped bar, echoing modern terracotta pendant lights that warm the airy, white-walled space. Two walls of windows bring in natural light, while a white La Marzocco Linea espresso machine stands against white-tiled walls behind the bar, where cafe manager Shannon Carlson and baristas keep drinks and pastries flowing.

The new look marks a substantial brightening of the cozy 460-square-foot location where Saint Simon Coffee operated for more than 12 years before closing its Broadway shop in June. Cosmopolis Coffee Founder Conor Carrigan told Daily Coffee News he’s honored to carry the torch for specialty coffee on the south edge of Portland’s Irvington neighborhood while building upon a roasting business that launched online in 2023 and later expanded into farmers markets.

Cosmopolis Coffee Founder Conor Carrigan. Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.

“I want it to be a very coffee-forward cafe. It’s really about the coffee,” Carrigan told Daily Coffee News. “It’s going to be a place where people are going to enjoy coming for really good coffee and be a feature of the neighborhood here, but also for people from all around the city to be able to come and try our coffees.”

Carrigan currently roasts all the coffees for Cosmopolis on a 10-kilo-capacity Proaster roaster at the Buckman Coffee Factory shared roasting facility, which is also where he connected with educator and consultant Mike Nelson, who helped Carrigan further develop his skills and his business. 

“To use a coffee term, we’re quite ‘calibrated’ in terms of how we see the coffee business, our tastes in coffee and so on,” Carrigan said. “He’s just been somebody that I’ve found very easy to work with.”

Carrigan also confers with consultant Darrin Daniel on cupping and quality control and credits educator Adam S. Carpenter with providing his foundation in roasting and cupping.

To launch Cosmopolis, Carrigan began roasting at the Curate Coffee Collective shared roastery. After Curate shut down, he moved into a privately shared facility with other former Curate roasters before transitioning to Buckman, gaining skills and industry connections along the way.

Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.

“All these experiences, honestly, I’ve gotten something really great from all of them,” Carrigan said. “Meeting these different roasters, it’s really shown me that a community — it’s not a cliché, in Portland at least. They’ve all been so supportive.”

Carrigan’s own path reflects the Cosmopolis name. Born and raised in Ireland to an American mother and an Irish-Colombian father, he later lived in Switzerland while working in the cotton division for Swiss commodities trading house Ecom, then ran a commodities trading business based in Latvia. After returning to Ireland, he shifted into law and later pursued human rights work in Colombia.

Carrigan eventually moved to the United States, practicing law and working on housing issues in New York City before moving into political campaign work that took him to cities and states across the country. After visiting his sister in Portland, he eventually settled there and turned his attention to coffee, inspired in part by his Colombian family history. His great-uncle Rafael Parga Cortés operated a coffee farm in Tolima called La Montaña, which Carrigan said was sold in the 1980s.

“One of the things that drew me in [to coffee] was that it was going to tie all these different things together,” Carrigan said. “The commodity element, reconnecting me with Colombia, the idea of being able to get out in the field away from a desk, doing something with my hands in terms of roasting, and also the aspiration to be able to do it in a way that was positive, to develop meaningful relationships with producers.”

Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.

Colombian coffee currently dominates the menu at Cosmopolis, including three regular options and one decaf sourced through importers and suppliers including Caravela Coffee, Forest Coffee and Shared Source. An Ethiopian coffee is currently on its way, with additional origins planned as the program grows.

“Up to now, mostly because the business was fairly small, we’ve had plenty to do with the Colombian coffees,” said Carrigan. “Cosmopolis means a city of different peoples and cultures. That is the way I see the world in general, and the coffee world, as well.”

Cosmopolis Coffee is located at 2005 NE Broadway in Portland, Oregon.

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