Wall Street Big Boy TSG Consumer Partners And Lapdog Stumptown Coffee Roasters Invade Austin

Mar 16

posted by RL Reeves Jr in Can't Be Categorized, Coffee

Mystifying.

Stumptown Coffee Roasters is now being served in Austin and shops serving the corporate brew are trumpeting their affiliation.

Partial list:

1] Juan Pelota Cafe

2] Elizabeth Street Cafe

3] Hillside Farmacy

I'll be updating this periodically. I'm trying to balance the current movement of local restaurants serving local produce, local meat and investing money locally by supporting local vendors with the bringing in of coffee from TSG Consumer Partners.

Anyone with input on this?

Austin has 2 nationally prominent roasters; Cuvee in nearby Spicewood, and Anderson's in Central Austin so it's baffling that local cafes would go out of their way to ignore a top flight local producer in favor of one from 1000s of miles away.

From Willamette Weekly out of Oregon "TSG's portfolio has previously included Spic and Span cleaners, Compound W wart-removal products, Famous Amos cookies and La Victoria Mexican foods. Buyers of TSG-held companies have included ConAgra, Hershey's, 3M and L'Oreal."

Yep, that's got Austin written all over it. Maybe Austin in 2012, depressingly enough.

Great article about Stumptown http://wweek.com/portland/article-17590-the_selling_of_

another good piece on Stumptown http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/stump

9 Comments

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This entry was posted on March 16, 2012 at 2:35 PM. There are currently 9 comments. Print this entry.

     

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• #1 by mick on 3/16/12 - 3:00 PM

  

  or they could really go local and get great fresh roasted coffee from Jamie at Anderson & Co......been there doing it since the 70's, learned his craft from old man Peet of Peet's in Berkeley.

• #2 by rl reeves jr on 3/16/12 - 3:23 PM

  

  Yep and .75 cents a cup to boot.

• #3 by Jack on 3/19/12 - 9:25 PM

  

  Maybe it is just better coffee- ever consider that possibility? Have you even bothered to taste the stuff you are writing about? I'm sure your local micro roaster startups are fine- but there is a reason people crow about featuring Stumptown, and it is in the cup. Stumptown, a corporate lapdog? The article you quote is based on a story told by a competitor of Stumptown- there is no independent verification of its contents whatsoever. The same people who started the company still run it- they are neighbors of mine. They took on an investor to grow; that's why you can get it in Austin now. This makes them evil corporate lapdogs?
  If local is better, awesome. It is not the end-all in every case.

• #4 by rl reeves jr on 3/20/12 - 4:10 AM

  

  Tasting Stumptown was what prompted me to write the article.
  
  I was baffled that coffee that bad was being served in Austin.
  
  I hit Hillside a few times during southby, had no idea what coffee brand they were serving-just wandered what stale, bitter bean they were serving.
  
  I asked a server and they proudly announced they were serving Stumptown.
  
  Did a little research and discovered there was a story afoot.
  
  Taste Cuvee and Stumptown in a blind test. If you have even moderately functioning taste buds you'll agree. Cuvee is plainly better. Hell, Texas Coffee Traders is better and I'm no supporter of that roaster.
  
  Local/national-whatever. That Stumptown brew is just bad.
  
  At the end of the day, I just want to drink good coffee. Stumptown [the variety at Hillside] is not good.

• #5 by Nick Valo on 4/6/12 - 10:08 AM

  

  RL Reeves JR obviously knows nothing about coffee.

• #6 by rl reeves jr on 4/6/12 - 10:12 AM

  

  Thanks for the great tweet idea man: https://twitter.com/#!/RLReevesJr/status/188282911...

• #7 by rl reeves jr on 4/6/12 - 10:18 AM

  

  http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,197...

• #8 by George Leake on 4/8/12 - 11:09 PM

  

  Stumptown I remember trying once--unimpressive, inoffensive. I must say all the hype around Cuvee is rather mystifying, given that one of the pioneers of the coffee revolution, Jamie Anderson, lives here. I know Cuvee has some roasts that taste appropriate for Espresso--one restaurant where I worked has samples--but inexplicably places like Medici use a light roast that tastes nasty like Folger's. It boggles the mind...the only coffee shop that comes close to serving an Espresso that tastes like what is served in Italy (or France or Spain for that matter) is Russell's next door to Anderson's.

• #9 by rl reeves jr on 4/8/12 - 11:14 PM

  

  thanks for the rec. I've never been to Russell's but will put it on the list.