My Top 10 Travel Experiences of the Past Five Years

Later this year, I am travelling to Peru, where I should be able to cross another item off my bucket list: hiking the Inca Trail and visiting Machu Picchu. I'm really excited about the trip, which will be my first time in South America, and I couldn't help but look back on some of the other amazing travel experiences I've been lucky enough to have over the past few years. I hope some of these will inspire you with your own holiday planning for 2018 and beyond.

1. Snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef (Australia)
Since I obtained my PADI Open Water qualification 15 years ago, I have longed to scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef, off the eastern coast of Australia. Unfortunately, when I finally made it to tropical North Queensland, my ears were playing up so I had to 'settle' for a snorkelling excursion instead. And it was a beautiful, memorable experience, where I got to swim with turtles, spot a shark and admire myriad species of colourful tropical fish. Despite the climate-change-induced catastrophic bleaching events of 2016 and 2017, the reef is still a fascinating ecosystem to visit. If you're interested in finding out more about the ecology and zoology, I'd highly recommend taking a trip with Wavelength.

2. Ziplining through the clouds (Costa Rica)
Costa Rica is a relatively compact country and you can see a great deal during a two-week trip. One of my favourite activities was a zipline tour through the cloud forest of Monteverde, culminating in a 1km-long zipline through the middle of a cloud.

3. Chasing the Northern Lights (Iceland)
Although the Northern Lights weren't at their most epic the night I got to see them in Reykjavik, they were still impressive and besides, the hunt — with SuperJeep — was half the fun. The tour was expensive but I would definitely take it again next time I go to Iceland.

4. Grotto-hopping in Capri (Italy)
While in sunny Sorrento for my cousin's wedding in 2016, my family hired a small boat to take us out to the island of Capri. We spent a blissful day swimming, snorkelling, sunbathing and exploring the various grotte that can be found along the island's coast. We visited the famous Grotta Azzurra (blue grotto), of course, and although it was very busy and hammier than a leg of prosciutto, I really enjoyed the experience.

5. Early-morning sushi in Tokyo (Japan)
There's nothing quite like landing in Tokyo on a sunny morning after a long, overnight flight, dropping off your suitcase at your hotel and heading straight out for an early sushi breakfast. I missed the fish auction but had the freshest, most delicious sushi of my trip at Daiwa Sushi at the Tsukiji Fish Market. The market is going to relocate ahead of the 2020 Olympics, but the move is now not scheduled to take place until October 2018, so you still have time to enjoy it in its original state. I had so many memorable experiences during my 10-day trip to Japan and it's top of my 'must revisit' list.

6. Oaxacan cooking class (Mexico)
I love the flavours and colours of Mexican cuisine and ate some delicious dishes while staying in the colourful city of Oaxaca. One day, I took a wonderful cooking class with Oscar Carrizosa, where we shopped for food at a local market and then prepared (and ate) a huge variety of dishes. It was an excellent introduction to Oaxacan cooking — and understanding the local food culture also helped me feel more connected to the friendly people of Oaxaca. Needless to say, Mexico comes a close second after Japan on my 'revisit' list.

7. Skydiving from 15,000 feet (New Zealand)
After a fab fortnight in Australia and two wonderful weeks in New Zealand, I celebrated the end of my one-month sabbatical by skydiving from 15,000 feet over Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables. It was a literally breathtaking experience and one of the best things I've ever done. I jumped with NZONE and would highly recommend them; you can watch my (slightly sweary) video here.

8. Sailing through beautiful Ha Long Bay (Vietnam)
Three days and two nights aboard the small but well-equipped Dragon's Pearl, cruising past hundreds and hundreds of limestone islands in Ha Long Bay was as relaxing as it was beautiful. I was glad I upped my budget and booked with Indochina Junk, as they took us to the quieter but just as stunning Bai Tu Long Bay. On our final night, we enjoyed a barbecue feast in a UNESCO-listed cave. A top-notch trip, even if the sun didn't grace us with much of its presence.

9. Motorbike tour of Saigon street food (Vietnam)
I planned only to include one experience per country but I just couldn't choose between Ha Long Bay and the street food tour on the back of a motorbike that I took in Saigon. I'd never ridden on a motorbike before, but my XO Tour guide showed me a great time. I ate some delicious street food dishes and saw parts of the sprawling city of Saigon that I probably wouldn't have reached by myself on such a short trip.

10. Third-wave coffee tour in Portland (Oregon, USA)
You weren't thinking I'd make it through this list without a speciality coffee bucket-list item, were you? And although I could have included my fast-paced, self-guided tour of Melbourne's speciality coffee scene, I wanted to give a shout out to the excellent tour led by Lora of Third Wave Coffee Tours in Portland, Oregon. We visited five of the city's signature micro-roasteries and cafés, with a different coffee experience in each. Of course, I visited plenty of others during my short stay in Portland, but Lora gave me a great introduction to the local coffee scene.

A Year in Leaps: 2016

Each year, as part of my year-in-review top five lists, I like to look back on some of the most memorable places I travelled to this year and, because I enjoy taking silly leaping photos in new places, picking out my favourite five leaps of the year is a fun way to do this. Alas, there were a few particularly memorable trips this year during which, for various reasons, I didn't get the chance to take a leaping photo; most notably, my recent holiday in Reykjavik, where a photo with the Northern Lights in the background would have entailed a 12-second levitation. Even in a leap year, I wasn't quite up to the challenge.

1. The 'she's a waterfall' leap. Multnomah Falls, Oregon, USA.

I'd long dreamed of making a coffee pilgrimage to Portland, Oregon, and although a work trip to Washington, DC, wasn't an especially convenient excuse, I really enjoyed my time in the Pacific Northwest. One day, I took a tour to the beautiful Columbia River Gorge. Even on a cold, grey weekday in February, the famous Multnomah Falls — the second largest year-round waterfall in the United States — was very busy. But I found a gap in the crowds and a fellow tourist kindly took my leaping photo. For more detail on my Portland coffee experiences, this is the post you are looking for.


2. The leap 'at the end of the Universe'. Bai Tu Long Bay, Vietnam.

I spent two weeks travelling around Vietnam in the spring and if you haven't been to the beautiful and varied country before, I would highly recommend it (I have my handy two-week itinerary here). One of the highlights was a two-night cruise on Indochina Junk's Dragon's Pearl, which takes you through the famous Ha Long Bay — home to almost 2,000 small limestone islands making for some stunning views, even when it's cloudy or rainy. On our last night, we had a wonderful barbecue feast inside a cave on one of the islands, which was a memorable experience, but before dinner, we had a bit of time on the beach at Hon Co Island, where one of the 17 other passengers on the Dragon's Pearl took a photo of me jumping for joy. I had plenty of great coffee in Vietnam too; check out my coffee guides to Saigon and Hoi An, and Hanoi.


3. The 'original leap, reconstructed'. Paris, France.

I used to spend a lot of time in Paris, but my trips have become less frequent over the years. After reconnecting with an old friend last year, I went to visit him in Paris for a long weekend in June. The city was recovering from flooding but it didn't stop us from having a great time as we roamed through the city, stopping regularly to visit many of the cafés in Paris's newly burgeoning speciality coffee scene. And, of course, I couldn't walk through the Louvre without taking the opportunity to reconstruct the first leap, more than eight years ago now, that started me off on this leaping kick.


4. The 'infinite' leap. Amalfi Coast, Italy.

My cousin got married in Sorrento in August and my family and I took the opportunity to explore some new-to-us parts of southern Italy, including Naples, Capri and the Amalfi Coast. If you have a choice, I would avoid the Amalfi Coast in August as it is very hot and exceptionally busy. However, August was when we were there so we tried to make the best of it. Our Amalfi Coast tour was great fun — we hired a driver and adored visiting the postcard-perfect Positano, sat in a long traffic jam in Amalfi town and then made it to the village of Ravello, perched in the hills, high above the sea. It only seemed right that at the beautiful and peaceful Villa Cimbrone, we should seek out the Terrazzo dell’Infinito (Terrace of Infinity) for an infinite leap or two.


5. The 'if I leap here often enough, will someone let me move to this city?' leap. New York, USA.

Unusually, I only managed one trip to New York this year but it was a fun one, with my family in October. On our first full day in the city, it poured with rain but early birds that we were, we had already walked over an ominously foggy Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan long before the heavens opened. I have walked the bridge dozens of times over the years, and have run over it and leaped on it almost as many, but it remains one of my favourite things to do in the city and I never tire of that fabulous skyline view.


I already have quite a few holidays and overseas work trips booked in for next year — in February alone, I will be going to the US and on very brief visits to Spain and Italy — and I'm still planning on taking advantage of my company's new sabbatical policy to organise a slightly longer than usual adventure in the autumn. I'm always looking for new destinations to add to my ever-growing travel to-do list so please let me know in the comments if there's somewhere you think I should visit.

12 Specialty Coffee Shops To Visit in Portland, Oregon

Portland feels to me like the coffee centre of the universe and it is home to dozens of specialty coffee shops, cafes and roasters. I didn't manage to visit them all during my three-day visit, but I did pretty well, visiting 12 different coffee shops and cafes, including the five I took in on my Third Wave Coffee tour.

I've created a Portland specialty coffee map, which highlights the places I went to, and included brief reviews of them all below. I have grouped them by neighbourhood, but as some have multiple locations around the city, I have geo-categorised the branch I visited; in my map, I have only included locations that are within easy reach of the downtown area. A nice thing to note is that many of these places open as early as 6 am during the week.



Downtown
Stumptown
Perhaps the most iconic of all of the roasters in Portland (AKA Stumptown), Stumptown Coffee's fame extends well beyond the city limits. I've visited several of their New York cafes, but the first step of my Portland coffee education had to be a visit to Stumptown. Luckily, their downtown cafe on SW 3rd Avenue was only four blocks from my hotel, so I was able to stop by a couple of times.

The downtown location is large and attractive, with red-brick walls, lovely art and plenty of room to sit in and enjoy your drink. I've tried their cold brew and nitro cold brew before, and both are great, but this time, I focused on the Chemex options (they also do French press, but no V60 or Aeropress). I tried both the Peruvian and the Rwandan coffees ($4.25) through the Chemex; the former was probably my favourite, but both were expertly brewed and the staff were very friendly and knowledgeable. They even open at 6 am, which saved me from terrible airport coffee before my early flight.

Stumptown Coffee is located at 128 SW 3rd Ave, nr Pine Street. Their HQ and Tasting Bar, which offers public tastings at 3 pm, is on the East Side at 100 Salmon Street. Website. Twitter.

Case Study
I visited Case Study, one of the first third-wave coffee spots in Portland, as part of my Third Wave Coffee tour. Their downtown location is bright and roomy, with lots of stools around the large, central coffee bar and a few small tables at the sides. They serve espresso-based drinks and hand-brewed filter coffee (Chemex, French press and Kalita Wave dripper); I tried all three of the latter, and each was very well prepared, with careful attention paid to bringing out the best of each coffee. Case Study is also famous for their syrups. I don't usually like syrups in my coffee, but we tried one of the most delicious salted-caramel pastries I've ever had.

Case Study is located at 802 SW 10th Ave, at Yamhill St. They have two other locations, much further north and northeast of downtown. Website. Twitter.

Barista
Barista has four cafes in central Portland, each of which is beautifully decorated with a combination of exposed brick and art-deco accents. I walked past the large, bustling Nob Hill location but stopped for coffee at their smaller but just as chic downtown branch, in the historic Hamilton Building. Barista don't roast their own coffee, but showcase a rolling edit of coffee from some of the best US roasters. While I was there, they had coffee from Vancouver-based 49th Parallel and two local roasters, Coava and Roseline.

There was no hand-brewed filter coffee in the downtown branch (although they had cold brew from Seattle-based Kuma), but you could choose from a couple of single-origin espressos. I tried a macchiato with Honduran coffee from Coava, which was prepared wonderfully, with excellent latte art. The downtown branch of Barista is really busy and there isn't a lot of seating, but I picked a quieter, late afternoon time to visit and was able to sit and enjoy my coffee and people-watch.

Barista is located at 529 SW Alder St, near Alder. They also have locations in the Pearl District and Nob Hill. Website. Twitter.

Heart
A while ago, BuzzFeed featured some of my photos of Revolver in Vancouver in a list of coffee shops you wished you lived in. Heart's downtown cafe wasn't included (Portland is noticeable in this guide by its absence), but it is seriously beautiful, with its gorgeous monochrome decor and sexy little espresso machine. Nor was it a case of style over substance: my macchiato ($3.50) was very fine indeed and the busy cafe was great for people-watching. Heart roast their own coffee, but I forgot to check which espresso variety they were serving while I was there; I expect it's difficult to go wrong with your coffee choice. If you are lactose-free, the home-made cashew-almond milk is supposed to be excellent.

Heart is located at 537 SW 12th Ave, at Alder St. Their East Side branch is at 2211 East Burnside St (NB: it's pretty far east). Website. Twitter.

The Society Cafe
Even my hotel, The Society Hotel, had a great cafe in its lobby — another concept it shares with the similarly stylish but pricier Ace Hotel (which has its own Stumptown cafe). I had a couple of cortados ($3) at The Society Cafe, and they were both made expertly by the lovely, friendly barista, with latte art among the best in the city. The Society Cafe uses coffee from Ristretto Roasters (see below) and they also serve a mean avo toast ($5) and, once the sun is over the yardarm, cocktails.

The Society Cafe is located at 203 NW Third Ave, at Davis St. Website. Twitter.

Olé Latte
The last stop on my Third Wave Coffee Tour was to one of Olé Latte's three Portland coffee carts. We visited the cart located in the Alder Food Cart pod, where our cheerful barista made us each a Portland Pine latte (with syrup from the Douglas Fir). They also serve more standard espresso-based drinks, pourovers ($4) and cold brew ($3), and sell lovely ceramic mugs, made by one of the baristas. Olé Latte also has a pay-it-forward system, in case you would like to do a good deed and buy someone a coffee. Olé Latte is a great way to combine two key Portland trends: coffee and food carts.

Olé Latte is located at 1003 SW Alder St, near 10th St. They also have carts at Portland State University and in Happy Valley. Website. Twitter.

Night Owl
If you're looking for caffeination while at the Portland Farmers' Market, Night Owl is your best bet. They are a local roaster and don't have a bricks-and-mortar cafe but serve pourover ($3) and French press ($2.50) coffee at the market. You can also buy beans at their stall. I had a Colombian pourover, which was pretty decent.

Night Owl is at the Portland Farmers' Market, 1010 SW Park Avenue, near Main St. Website. Twitter.

Pearl District
Christopher David
Part lifestyle boutique, part florist and part cafe, Christopher David is a great destination for combining your shopping and coffee needs in the trendy Pearl District. The cafe is large, bright and tastefully decorated with some of the items you can buy in the shop. The coffee is from Water Avenue and a macchiato will set you back $2.75. On our tour, we tried the signature drink, the Cafe di Nini ($3), named for one of the owners, which is a surprisingly tasty combination of espresso, rice milk and vanilla syrup. The breakfast (various avo toasts) and lunch menus also looked delicious.

Christopher David is located at 901 NW Tenth Ave, at Kearney St. Website. Twitter.

Northwest
Sterling Coffee Roasters
Petite and purple, Sterling's 21st Avenue cafe is located in Nob Hill, a ten-minute walk northwest of downtown. There is room for about seven or eight people to sit and barely any standing room, but it is a lovely, well-run coffee shop. They weren't serving hand-brewed filter coffee while I was there (there was a batch-brew coffee on offer), so I ordered a macchiato ($3, I think) and perched at one of the tiny, white-tablecloth-laden, pine-cone accented tables. The coffee was good (with very good latte art), the baristas were very friendly and the people-watching was top notch.

Sterling Coffee Roasters is located at 417 NW 21st Ave, between Flanders and Glisan. They have another branch a few blocks south. Website. Twitter.

East Side
Coava Coffee Roasters
I spent most of my time in Portland pronouncing Coava to rhyme with guava, but it actually rhymes with Jehovah. The name refers to unroasted or 'green' coffee. Coava has been roasting since 2008, and they now have two coffee bars, both on Portland's East Side: a brew bar on SE Grand Avenue, and an espresso bar, further east on Hawthorne Boulevard. Being a brewed-coffee kinda gal, I stopped by the brew bar on a sunny Monday afternoon. They had obviously been roasting when I arrived because the air was thick with the dark, sharp notes of freshly roasted coffee.

The Grand Avenue location is huge, occupying a converted warehouse that is kitted out with the aforementioned brew bar, the roaster, lots of communal tables and various pieces of local artwork for sale. You can buy the tables too, but they aren't cheap. They were serving two espresso and two filter-coffee options while I was there: I chose the Honduran Benjamin Miranda variety (which, I later realised, I had just enjoyed in my macchiato at Barista) brewed through the Chemex ($4, I think, although mine was on the house as I also bought a bag of beans and a travel tumbler). The coffee was even better brewed this way, and I enjoyed my drink while basking in the afternoon sunshine and chatting with the charming baristas. I bought a different variety of Honduran beans (Porfirio Castellanos) to take home with me and, brewed with my Aeropress, they have produced some truly excellent cups of coffee.

Coava Coffee Roasters' brew bar is located at 1300 SE Grand Avenue, at Main St. Their espresso bar is at 2631 SE Hawthorne Boulevard, near 27th Ave. Website. Twitter.

Ristretto Roasters
Local roaster Ristretto has three cafes around the city, but their East Side cafe on NE Couch Street is the most central. I stopped by the Couch Street location on my coffee tour; in case you were wondering, Couch rhymes with pooch! We took part in a coffee cupping session, experiencing and trying to describe the aromas and taste notes in three different Ristretto coffees. Our barista made the process educational and fun. The coffees we tried were all Central/South American and I really liked their Colombian Pijao coffee in particular.

Ristretto serves espresso-based drinks, cold brew ($3) and Steampunk filter coffee ($4) — they have the same cool Alpha Dominche Steampunk kit as Macintyre in London; again, I regretted not having the chance to try out coffee brewed with this siphon-like method. Ristretto's Couch Street cafe isn't the hugest, but it was relatively quiet during my Sunday brunchtime visit: there are a dozen or so seats and it's beautifully sunny.

Ristretto Roasters is located at 555 NE Couch Street, at 6th Ave. They have two other branches further north of the city centre. Website. Twitter.

Cup & Bar
I came to this cafe, which is a collaboration of Trailhead coffee roasters and Ranger gourmet chocolate, on my Third Wave Coffee tour. We watched a roasting and sampled the cafe's signature drink: a dirty Charlie (a shot of espresso poured over cacao ice cream, served with foam and dark chocolate shavings), which was sinful but delicious. Before Cup & Bar opened, Trailhead used to roast coffee and deliver it by bike and you can see the delivery back out back near the cheerful yellow roaster.

If you aren't in the mood for a dirty Charlie, there are the usual espresso drinks (a macchiato is $3.50), mochas with Ranger chocolate ($4.25), pourovers ($3.50), cold brew ($3) and home-made syrups. The avo toast is supposed to be among the best in town, but there are a few other breakfast/brunch options too: we sampled the jam on sourdough toast, which was delicious.  The cafe itself is large and bright, with high ceilings and large wooden tables.

Cup & Bar is located at 118 NE Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard, near Couch St. Website. Twitter.

For more detailed information on the Third Wave Coffee tour I did, head on over to my review.

A Caffeinated Tour of Portland with Third Wave Coffee Tours

One of the main reasons I wanted to visit Portland was to explore its extensive coffee scene. But with only three days in the city, there were only so many coffee spots even a chronic caffeine-addict like me could fit in. A good friend, who travelled to Portland with her husband last year, recommended I check out Third Wave Coffee Tours, founded by "second-generation Oregonian and third-wave coffee lover" Lora Woodruff. Lora and her team of guides run several different three-hour walking tours, which visit various combinations of Portland coffee shops.

As I was only in town for a few days, only one of the tours was available — A Streetcar Named Delicious, which runs on Sundays at 10 am — but as it is the only tour to take in cafes and roasters on both sides of the Willamette River, I was very happy. Before the tour, I asked Lora for a list of the shops we would be visiting to make sure I didn't double up on my first day in the city. She provided this and her map of Portland micro-roasters and cafes, many of which I had pre-identified but which was really useful.

Despite warnings about Portland's damp climate, it was mild, bright and sunny for my entire trip, including during my coffee tour. We met at the first coffee stop, Case Study Coffee, in the downtown area and settled into the reserved area at the back of the large cafe. There were seven of us on the tour — a mix of locals and travellers, coffee lovers and the coffee curious. Lora began with an introduction to the history of coffee and its production process. Then she gave us some more detailed information about the different 'waves' of coffee culture in the US, the first being home brewing, the second being the introduction of Italian, espresso-based drinks and the third being the move towards producing high-quality, artisanal coffee.

Lora also told us a bit more about the history of Portland's coffee scene: the city had the US's fourth Starbucks (the first three being in Seattle), but is now home to almost 900 coffee shops (about a quarter of these are Starbucks, sadly). Case Study itself was one of Portland's first micro-roasters to open up, in 2010, and its cafe is beautiful, bright space on SW 10th Avenue with seats around the large, round coffee bar.

We then enjoyed a brew-method demonstration from Ethan, a barista from Case Study, who showed us how to prepare the same coffee variety in three different ways — with a French press, a Chemex and a Kalita dripper — and encouraged us to consider how each brew method produced coffee with contrasting appearances and tastes, and explained the importance of controlling different varios (water-coffee ratio, temperature, etc). I had tried all of these methods before, of course, but I still learnt a lot and am always looking for tips on improving my brewing and fine-tuning my taste buds.

After leaving Case Study, we hopped on our first streetcar of the tour — Portland has two modern streetcar routes that run in opposite directions in a large loop around the city centre, on both sides of the river. We weren't going far: our next stop was Christopher David, a gorgeous interior-design store and florist with a cafe that serves coffee from Water Avenue roasters. Christopher David is based in a neighbourhood called the Pearl District, once filled with warehouses, but now a home to numerous cool restaurants, cafes, design stores and expensive apartments.

One of the great things about Third Wave tours is that you don't just go to five cafes and drink the same coffees at each, and at Christopher David, we got to try the cafe's signature drink, the Cafe di Nini. This consists of a shot of single-origin espresso and a shot of vanilla syrup layered over rice milk. You throw it back like a slammer to allow the contrasting flavours, textures and temperatures mingle and merge. I was dubious, but it was actually rather good. We browsed the shop for a few minutes and I managed to avoid the temptation of buying any of the beautiful interiors pieces (I needed to save room in my suitcase for coffee!).

Next, we took the streetcar again, venturing east across the river to Cup & Bar, which as its name may suggest, specialises in artisanal coffee (from Trailhead roasters) and chocolate (from Ranger Chocolate). Trailhead used to exist only as a roaster — the delivery bike they use was hanging out near the roaster when we visited — but teamed up with Ranger to open up a cafe in an industrial area of the city that now has a number of hip cafes and shops. Trailhead also try to source their coffees from women-only coops, where possible.

We watched one of the Cup & Bar team overseeing a coffee roasting, watching the beans changing colour and listening out for the first and second 'cracks' as the coffee structure begins to change. I don't normally like to mix coffee and chocolate, but I couldn't turn down Cup & Bar's signature Dirty Charlie (named for Trailhead's owner): a chocolatey macchiato, with espresso poured over cacao nib ice cream and topped with foam and shaved Ranger chocolate. It was delicious and put all powdered-chocolate coffee toppings to shame. We also snacked on some sourdough toast with jam — Lora mentioned that Cup & Bar's avo toast was the best in town, but sadly, I didn't have time to try it.

Just a couple of blocks east of Cup & Bar was one of the branches of Ristretto Roasters, our fourth stop. This time, our goal was to master the art of cupping, the process of smelling, tasting and describing the different notes of a coffee. Cupping is actually rather challenging — I always find that I am way too suggestible to the provided descriptions of a coffee. Our barista was great, though, and he helped us to relax and enjoy the process. We 'cupped' three different Ristretto coffees, one from Colombia (my favourite, natch), one from Guatemala and one from Brazil. With hindsight, I really wish I had bought a bag of their beans!

Our final destination gave us the chance to sample Portland's extensive and growing food-truck scene. We took the streetcar back across the river to the downtown area and walked over to Ole Latte's coffee truck among the collection, or pod, of food carts on Alder Street (between 9th and 11th St). Of all of the shops we visited, Ole Latte might be the most 'Portland'. First, they have a pay-it-forward system, where you can pay for an extra coffee when you buy yours and write it up on the 'suspend coffees' board; if you want a free coffee, you can just cross it off the board and tell the staff. Second, we tried a mini-version of the current signature drink: the Portland Pine latte, made with syrup of the Douglas Fir, Portland's state plant.

Flavoured lattes aren't really my thing, but it was nice to try something different and it was great to chat to the friendly barista. They even sell beautiful ceramic mugs, which are made by one of the other baristas. By then, unfortunately, we had reached the end of our tour. Lora gave us all a few suggestions for lunch and brunch, including Nong's (an award-winning food cart just down from Ole Latte, which I went back to the following day) and Veritable Quandary (where I went for brunch).

I highly recommend Third Wave Coffee tours for anyone who loves coffee or would like to learn more about it, or to anyone who enjoys spending time in cafes in the company of a real local expert. Lora's passion for coffee and her pride in her city really came through in the tour, and she has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Portland and especially its coffee scene. She is also friendly, funny and great fun! Third Wave tours cost $40 and you can book them online — advance booking is recommended, particularly in the spring and summer.

For more Portland coffee tips, check out my guide.