Peggy Thompson started Hood River Coffee Roasters with Mark Hudon in 1990 in their home on Wasco Street. They moved their growing business to Tucker Road in 2003.
Thompson has been the sole owner of the business since 2014. When she’s not roasting coffee, she can be found surfskiing on the Columbia, enjoying the community of Stevenson, where she recently moved, and training for an upcoming half-marathon.
How did you get your start as a coffee roaster?
Prior to moving to Hood River, around 1988, my ex-husband and I spent hours talking about going into business for ourselves. We had our best conversations while driving to windsurf in the Santa Cruz/Bay Area. At one point, we considered a laundromat. I had once worked at one and liked the ease of its operation. Then, we hit upon coffee. We both loved coffee. I worked at Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company to observe what a roastery business looked like. It spoke of community unlike anything a laundromat could offer and that had me hooked. Even now, years later, without having a coffee shop as part of the business, community is ever present in our interactions. It has been a gratifying way to be a part of the Gorge.
When did you realize coffee could be a big business?
When we started Hood River Coffee Roasters in 1990, “big business” and “coffee” were not spoken in the same sentence. It was never a goal.
The business was a way for us to build a life in a beautiful community doing something we were passionate about and allowed some autonomy. We were featured on the front page of the business section of The Oregonian in the early ‘90s. The article was titled, “Getting Big by Staying Small.” Yes, it was an oxymoron, but it spoke of our desire to not grow in a way that would impact our lifestyle. We were closed on Fridays in our earlier years and joked that we were 20 percent retired. In hindsight, we said those things as reminders to keep a balance in life, although we were busy and growing.
The onset of big business and coffee in specialty coffee came much later and has continued to flourish. We have naturally grown with it, but not intentionally.
How has coffee roasting changed since you started in the business?
When I started Hood River Coffee Roasters with my ex-husband out of our home on Wasco Street in 1990, we were on the heels of Starbucks as they promised to put a store on every corner in the U.S. Instead of being fearful, we saw that Starbucks provided us free advertising. We rode the proverbial wave as they brought awareness to the masses about specialty coffee. The coffee industry has grown in ways I never dreamed about in the early years. So much education has been provided to the common lay person. Better yet, the coffee growers have made amazing strides in their understanding of what good coffee should taste like as a result of associations like Specialty Coffee Association, Coffee Quality Institute and USAID providing education to them. The ultimate goal is to help them command a higher price for their hard work. We still have a long way to go.
How do you come up with names for your roasts?
We have many regional names that I believe have served us well. We have names as far reaching as Deschutes River Blend and at the other end of the Gorge, Multnomah Falls, where they have been serving our coffee since our beginning. Early on, it was the obvious thing to do — name a coffee after a feature in our area. Also, we still have names that speak to our first customers. The Inn of the White Salmon, Baldwin Saloon and the now defunct Abruzzo restaurant are a few.
How do you brew the perfect cup of coffee?
Any way you want! Years ago, I lost an account because I was adamant that the coffee be brewed exactly the way the “Golden Cup Standard” proposed. As we all know, we are individuals with individual tastes and thank God for that! Within a range of reasonable parameters, I vote for trying a variety of methods, roast degrees and amounts to determine what you like. Personally, I am a big fan of the one-cup-at-a-time method using a Melitta brewing cone.
How does coffee become decaffeinated? Is decaf considered real coffee?
Let’s start with the second question first. If you have heart palpitations and your doctor tells you that you can now only drink decaffeinated coffee, then decaf had better taste “real.” Blue Bird Coffee in Bend disclosed to me that one of the reasons they chose Hood River Coffee when they met us at our booth at the Specialty Coffee Association Festival in Seattle years ago was because when they asked other roasters about their decaffeinated coffees, they got tepid responses. When they asked us, we enthusiastically said, “It’s hard to tell the difference between our regular and decaf!” So yes, roasted correctly, decaf is a different kind of real. Decaffeinated coffee is created through a variety of methods. Swiss H20 uses charcoal and water and reverse osmosis. It is chemical free. Other methods, such as methyl chloride, extract the caffeine through chemical means. The residual left in the coffee is burned off in the roasting process, however the environmental impact is a problem.
What is your favorite roast?
Over the years, my vote has repeatedly gone to our full city Ethiopian Guji, natural process coffee. It has berry and red wine notes and a complexity of flavors all its own. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I love the blends that we have created over the years. It is a satisfying way to bring the best of each individual coffee together in one cup.
