The team and I have just returned from an amazing trip to San Francisco for the 2013 Good Food Awards. We were honored to be selected as a finalist this year but to take home a Gold Seal award was truly amazing! The Good Food Awards was founded 3 years ago to (as stated on their website ) “celebrate the kind of food we all want to eat: tasty, authentic and responsibly produced”. I can tell you from first hand experience that everything I tasted at the awards reception more than fit that bill!
Friday evening was a well-dressed affair full of passionate speeches about the state of food and food production in our country. We’re very passionate (some might say obsessed) about coffee here at Portland Roasting and it was wonderful to hear that same passion applied to pickles, beer, spirits and the rest. As much as I enjoyed the speeches, the real fun came in the tasting that followed.
Imagine a long hallway, about a football field in length. Now imagine that hallway lined on both sides with tables laden with some of the finest food in the US. Add free beer, spirits and coffee and BAM you’re in a foodie’s nirvana. That was the state of Friday night’s reception. I tried to keep track of everything we ate, but my brain stopped functioning properly after the tenth time of saying to myself “that’s the best _____ I’ve ever had!”. I finally dragged myself away from the tasting to get ready for Saturday’s Marketplace.
Located in San Francisco’s historic Ferry Building, the Marketplace serves the residents of San Francisco with a weekly collection of fine foods and other wares from the city. It’s a huge undertaking all on its own and we were lucky enough to have a section specifically for Good Food Award winners. We were stationed at a long line of tables all serving award winning coffee. Ethiopians dominated the offerings with a few other origins sprinkled in, but every single coffee was outstanding. We had long lines all day long and got to speak with hundreds of folks about coffee, which always makes for a nice day. It didn’t hurt that the sun was out and the weather just about perfect!
I know not all of you could join us in San Francisco, but if you’d like to check out our award winning coffee, it’s available from our website , or stop by our 340 SE 7th Ave location to pick up some for yourself.