Stumptown Holler Mountain Medium Roast

Stumptown Holler Mountain Medium Roast

Stumptown's Holler Mountain blend has been a hometown favorite since day one, and the bag at the top of this page is a 12 oz of 100% Arabica whole bean at a street price near 14.98 dollars. It carries a medium roast with citrus and berry jam up front, creamy caramel in the back, and a flavor built to pour a great espresso yet work as a daily drip cup. The 340 g net weight, the Direct Trade sourcing, and the bag size together set what the package gives you per cup.

The roast and the bean

Holler Mountain is a medium roast built from 100% Arabica, and Stumptown describes the cup as a burst of citrus and berry jam, rounded with notes of creamy caramel. It ships whole bean, so the grind is still in your hands when you pour, which matters for a roast this bright. The blend works across methods on one bag: drip and pour over in the morning, a finer pass for espresso, or cold brew over the weekend. The bean is a medium roast coffee bean, not the dark, low-acid roast that many grocery blends run.

What the flavor lands like

The front of the cup reads citrus and berry jam, then creamy caramel carries the finish, and the medium roast keeps the acidity up without turning sharp. Stumptown bought this roast through its Direct Trade program, which commits to three things: paying prices tied to quality, holding years-long relationships with known producers, and building collaborative partnerships. That program, not a spot-market bean price, is what the 14.98 dollars per 12 oz bag covers. At that price, a 15 g dose costs about 1.88 dollars before water, and a 17 g dose lands near 2.13 dollars, so the per-cup math sits between grocery ground coffee at roughly 0.75 dollars and cafe pricing of 4 to 6 dollars a cup. For reference, the maker itself has stayed in the Portland, Oregon and Seattle coffee trade since its 2005 start, and Holler Mountain was on the first menu, which is why the listing still markets it as the hometown blend.

Planning around the 12 oz bag

The 12 oz bag holds 340 g of whole bean, which works out to 20 to 24 cups on a drip at a 15 g to 17 g dose per cup. A solo drinker at one cup a day gets about three weeks from the bag, and two cups a day cut that to roughly 10 to 12 days. The practical rule is to weigh the dose instead of guessing with the spoon. A 15 g dose and a 17 g dose make a real difference in body, and a cheap kitchen scale keeps every cup even across the whole bag. Once the bag is open, transfer the beans to a small airtight container on a cool, dark shelf away from the oven and the window, because heat and light flatten the medium roast faster than air does. For the price side, a 12 cup pot at 60 g of grounds pulls nearly half the bag in one week at two pots a day, so plan the second purchase around the roast date rather than buying two bags up front. Buy the second bag only when the first is nearly empty, and store the spare away from the coffee machine, since the heat it puts off flattens the roast faster than the air in the room ever would. The brewing spec sheet's cost model puts a 250 g bag of whole beans at 14 dollars near 130 home cups, roughly 0.11 dollars a cup against 4 to 6 dollars at a cafe, and the gap is what makes the 12 oz bag a repeat purchase rather than a trial.

Brewing the medium roast at home

Water temperature sets the result before the brewer does. Drip and pour over run at 93 to 96 deg C, the specialty-coffee standard, and a drip maker hits that window on its own heating curve. A full pot brews for 8 to 10 minutes on that temperature, and the timer sets the pour over window. Start at a 1:15 water-to-coffee ratio, which means 15 g of coffee to 225 ml of water, and give the cup 4 minutes on the timer. If the cup reads bitter, coarsen the grind; if it reads flat, run it finer; change one variable at a time so you know which one moved the cup. Drip wants a medium grind, French press wants coarse, and espresso wants the finest pass. For a pot, a 12 cup brewer uses about 60 g of medium grind, and the strong setting lands near a 1:15 to 1:17 water-to-coffee ratio. A full pot runs 8 to 10 minutes at that temperature before the maker cuts the water off, and stopping the brew early leaves the caramel note sitting in the grounds instead of the cup.

Keeping the beans fresh

Whole bean stays brighter than pre-ground for weeks, so grind right before you brew instead of pre-milling the bag at once. After opening, move the beans to an airtight container, keep it off the counter and out of the light, and skip the fridge, where moisture and freezer burn risk both dull the medium roast. Grind only what the next two or three cups need, because once the bean is milled, the whole surface area hits the air at once and the bright notes drop in days instead of weeks. The roast date on the bag is the working clock: use the 12 oz supply within 4 to 6 weeks of it and the citrus and berry notes stay up. A quick sniff of the fresh grind is the fastest check that the beans have not turned, and if the smell is flat, the cup will be too. Size the container to a 2 to 3 week supply, which for a 340 g bag means one small airtight jar rather than a large can, and refill it from the bag as the supply drops below a 15 g dose. One more rule of thumb: a sealed, cool pantry store keeps the acidity alive longer than any specialty canister on the shelf, since light and warmth do more damage to a bright medium roast than air alone.

The numbers to keep

• Bag size: 12 oz / 340 g
• Roast: medium, 100% Arabica
• Flavor: citrus and berry jam, creamy caramel
• Cups per bag: 20 to 24 at a 15 g to 17 g drip dose
• Drip water: 93 to 96 deg C, a 1:15 to 1:17 ratio, 8 to 10 minutes on a full pot
• Price at last check: 14.98 dollars per bag