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By BOB WOOD
News staff writer
September 6,
2006
“You have to slurp it. It oxygenates the coffee,” said Brian
Graves between noisy sips from his cup, explaining how to
properly taste coffee. “It saturates the mouth and taste buds
and accentuates the characteristics.”
Graves is, by many people’s standards, a coffee aficionado. Less
than 15 years after his graduation from Kansas State University,
he has over a decade of coffee experience — everything from
working at the corporate level for Starbucks to roasting the
beans himself.
He said that having been born and raised in the Midwest, he
never would have expected to be so into the beverage. But
Graves’ knowledge comes in handy in the running of his business,
Pacific Rim Coffee Roasters, which just celebrated the grand
opening of its new location at 112 Seventh St. in Hood River.
After spending seven years down on Industrial Street, Graves is
excited about the space he has been in since May.
“What’s good about this location is that we’ll be able to sell
retail, and that’ll be huge,” he said. “It also complements
downtown nicely.”
Graves got his first taste of coffee, so to speak, during a trip
to Costa Rica when he was in college. “That’s when I realized
that coffee wasn’t just dirty black water,” he said.
What he didn’t know at the time was he had just taken the first
step toward what would one day become his profession.
Armed with a degree in hotel and restaurant management, Brian
moved west to manage a Starbucks in Portland — leaving his high
school sweetheart, then-girlfriend and now-wife Jennifer at KSU
to finish her teaching degree. Six months later she followed
him, and they got engaged.
After three years and various Starbucks cafés in Portland,
Graves got promoted to the corporate office in Seattle.
“I didn’t like the work, and it wasn’t the environment I enjoyed
working in,” Graves said. So, around a year later, he left.
“We decided that we needed to find a place to live, enjoy and
start a family,” Graves said. And that search led them directly
to Hood River.
After commuting to Portland for a year to work for a coffee
roaster there, Graves decided to try his hand at the business.
So he, Shane Langston and Cory Bernard, owners of Holstein’s
Coffee Company at the time, began Pacific Rim.
Since then the business has soared. Graves sells wholesale to
Doppio, Ground and other local businesses, but also attributes
his success to the very nature and culture of Hood River.
“It’s cool to live in an area where people’s palates are
refined,” he said. “Not only with coffee, but with beer, wine,
fruit … people here enjoy their food and beverage, and it’s cool
to be a part of that.”
The store offers cupping and whole-bean sale, but Graves doesn’t
want it to turn into a “coffee shop.”
“I want people to come in, get their coffee and be able to enjoy
it for the whole week,” he said.
As for the future, Graves hopes that his Internet and retail
sales will take off to match his solid wholesale, but he doesn’t
want to get too big.
He, Jennifer and Morgan, their daughter, want to stay in Hood
River.
“Our first priority is to live here,” he said. “I never want to
outgrow this space. I want to keep it simple, keep the quality
high, and not compromise that.”
*****
Graves also sells his coffee from his Web site,
pacificrimcoffeeroasters.com, and has begun selling retail from
his store, which is open Monday-Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon. |
