Our origin story is rooted in coffee. Keia, a former café manager for Stumptown coffee Roasters, met Martyn, the former Roastmaster for McMenamins through mutual barista and roaster friends. After several years of talking about starting our own company, we decided to try it in the form of an online coffee retail delivery business. I work on the flavor and marketing side with my background as a maker and barista while Martyn with his 20+ career in music production and performing handles the roasting, calibration, and green coffee buying.
Amongst playing music in his longtime band, The Minders, Martyn also roasts coffee, which is how he makes a living. Why coffee you might ask? Marty explains it like this, “My Grandfather long before me, worked in the coffee and tea trade in Kenya beginning in the late 1950s until his retirement in the 1990s. My first visit to a coffee farm was in Kenya when I was a teenager. Many years later I was offered a job in a micro-roastery, which I saw as a continuity of my Grandfather’s work.”
I moved to Portland in 2004 and immediately started working in coffee. I worked alongside people like Billy Wilson of Barista and was trained by Duane Sorenson, formerly of Stumptown Coffee Roasters. Over the next 10 years, I simultaneously worked on my other love, art, and continued building my palette and reputation. In 2014 I started my own small business, Modern Artifact, that showcases basket weaving, ceramics, resin incense, and other space design work that seeks to ground people in ancient ritual and land while looking towards the future. I hope to bring that same sense to Top Cup of reflective understanding of the entire process so that we can bring you something exceptional.
Together, we are Top Cup Coffee Roasters. We bring our passion and experience to deliver you a great cup of coffee. Thank you for choosing us!
