so nice, they’ll straight-up teach you to make their drinks

FOOD & DRINK

feature

All Is Full of Tea

Smith Teamaker cafe incorporates tea into colorful lattes, aromatic mocktails, baked goods—even sandwiches.

BY JENNI MOORE @JenniferKayMo

The vibe in a tea shop—and in a Smith Teamaker tea shop in particular—differs greatly from that in a coffee shop. For one thing, it’s not so loud. There’s no coffee grinder abruptly roaring to life, no frantic drink names called over blending frappucinos.

Instead, there’s merely the murmur of bar staff talking tea.

Stacked tins rest next to various brewing systems that line the wall. Cushioned stools trace the tea bar’s long counter. The loudest thing in the room is a quote on the wall from Steven Smith, which reads, “The perfect cup of tea is one shared with others.”

Located on the corner of Northwest 23rd Avenue and Glisan Street, the first-ever Smith Teamaker cafe opened in May—long after its namesake rose tumultuously through the Portland tea market to iconic status.

Smith co-founded Portland-area point of pride Stash Tea in 1972. In 1994, he created Tazo Tea Company, which he eventually sold to Starbucks.

Despite retiring at age 57 and moving his family to France, Smith returned to Portland two years later with the idea of starting yet another tea business—this time focused on extra-small-batch, high-quality teas. Sadly, Smith died of liver cancer in 2015, but his legacy of treasuring something as meaningful and simple as the ritual surrounding a good cup of tea has surged on. The cafe serves 30 kinds of hot tea, but the curious come in for colorful lattes and aromatic tea mocktails.

The Golden Light Latte is a major favorite and can be served iced or hot. It’s made by pulling Smith Golden Light tea—with turmeric, sarsaparilla root, and black pepper—through an espresso (or “teapresso”) machine, then adding maple syrup and dousing the blend with oat milk. The result is a beautiful, complex, sweet and softly spiced drink that goes mind-bendingly well with one of the pastry case’s sea salt-sprinkled miso-peanut butter cookies.

Even the cafe’s more filling food items incorporate tea into the recipes. The Garden Sandwich, for instance, slices beets roasted in floral jasmine tea and piles them high on spelt bread with tea kimchi, cucumber, sprouts, herbs, White Petal tea-infused cheese, and avocado.

This intentional tea touch was designed by chef Karl Holl, who wanted the cafe menu to go easy on the earth while showcasing how much could be done with plants. The menu is entirely vegetarian and offers gluten-free and vegan options.

Holl also sought to incorporate plants and fruits from Oregon. The shop’s thumbprint cookie uses just the right amount of jam made from Oregon berries.

Similarly, a partnership with bakery Grano led to a chocolate chip cookie that makes unique use of lavender tea.

One of the best things about Smith Teamaker is that one can stop in to grab a special tea drink, read a chapter of a book, and then end up leaving with several pouches of tea, matcha and bottled masala chai to enjoy at home.

The staff aren’t hiding any trade secrets. They’re happy to instruct customers on how to make home versions of their favorite café drinks.

For a home version of the Golden Light, add some honey or maple syrup to a glass measuring cup. Then add tea bags. Pour in just enough hot water to cover the tea bags; then pour that mixture into another cup filled with ice. Finally, add a milk of your choice to taste.

It’s hard to come by a cafe open past 4 pm these days, since COVID zapped a lot of local businesses’ ability to fully staff their operations. So Smith’s hours—open until 6 pm!—are something of a pandemic luxury. The only thing not so ideal about the new Smith Teamaker cafe is the sometimes lengthy search for a parking spot on Northwest 23rd.

DRINK: Smith Teamaker, 500 NW 23rd Ave., 503-206-745, smithtea.com. 9 am-6 pm daily.

AARON LEE

AARON LEE

BUZZ LIST

Where to drink this week.

AARON LEE

1. Lolo Pass

1616 E Burnside St., 503-908-3074, lolopasspdx. com. Coffee 7 am-2 pm, cocktails 4-10 pm daily. Lolo Pass’ open floor plan lobby is a fine place to start or end a night, but the hostel-like hotel’s main attraction is the fifth-floor rooftop, which features a fire pit, a communal guitar, its own bar and no shortage of socially distant seating arrangements. The vantage offers a unique view of downtown and the Central Eastside, with everything from Big Pink to Buckman Field visible on the scenic smorgasbord. Lolo’s house cocktails trend toward sweet and fruity, as evidenced in the pineapple-infused old fashioned, the unmuddled schnapps in the Teaches of Peaches Sex on the Beach, and the pamplemousse and aperol of the metropolitan but off-cycle Gemini SZN.

2. Botanist

910 NW 14th Ave., 971-533-8064, botanisthouse. com. 4-10 pm Wednesday-Thursday, 10 am-2 pm and 4-10:30 pm Friday-Saturday, 10 am-2 pm Sunday. When Botanist’s original subterranean location appeared too cramped to safely host customers during the pandemic, its owners moved the operation to the prime real estate once occupied by the perennially disappointing On Deck Sports Bar. Though it can only be seen from the second story, the view of neighboring condos at dusk under twinkling string lights is pretty well perfect. Look for even more delight in Botanist’s lineup of mixed drinks, like the Triple G Mule that’s an unusual shade of pink thanks to the bar’s own pinot noir grenadine, and a tingly lemon concoction called the Bees Knees, which tastes like a Sprite spiked with honey.

3. Tope

15 NW 4th Ave., 503-770-0500, thehoxton.com/ portland/tope-restaurant. 4-11 pm Thursday-Friday, 11 am-11 pm Saturday-Sunday. While Tope is only a short elevator ride nine stories up in the Hoxton Hotel, once you arrive, it feels as though you’ve traveled much farther. Having shed the grit of Old Town-Chinatown at the ground-level entrance, the swanky taco bar almost seems to exist in its own immunity bubble. Breezy beige wicker chairs and sofa sets along with tropical cocktails like the Opening Day—a swirl of citrus, vanilla and coconut—create a poolside vibe. Even though there is no water to admire, a clear blue sky isn’t a bad substitute, particularly on a day when you can see the crown of Mount Hood peering over Powell Butte.

4. Lady of the Mountain

100 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 971-3452992, kexhotels.com/eat-drink/ rooftop. 5-10 pm Wednesday-Sunday; Brunch 10 am-1 pm SaturdaySunday. Unlike many of the newly installed sidewalk cafes, Kex’s outdoor patio wasn’t urgently thrown together with social distancing in mind. The boutique hotel—a spinoff of an upscale hostel in Reykjavik, Iceland—is one of those rare gems in the city with a rooftop oasis. Four stories up is just enough height to provide an attractive view yet still sit below most of the surrounding buildings. Lady of the Mountain possesses an impressively long wine, beer and cocktail list. To make things easy, just order the Pimm’s Cup. Arriving in a mound of pebble ice that looks like an adult snow cone, the cocktail—made of cucumber-infused gin, lemon, ginger and soda—is the most refreshing thing you could possibly order on a Portland rooftop in August. The glass will be empty in less than five minutes.

5. Migration Rooftop at Canvas

1750 SW Yamhill St., 503-939-4164, migrationbrewing.com. 3 pm-midnight WednesdaySaturday, 11 am-8 pm Sunday. Migration Brewing’s rooftop outpost is the peak realization of the rooftop bar. A 180-degree view takes in downtown, the West Hills and the Alphabet District. The panorama stretches all the way to the St. Johns Bridge and Mount St. Helens. After a round, it’s easy to understand why people keep moving to Portland: Above the din and discord, this city seems like paradise.

TOP 5

HOT PLATES

Where to eat this week.

1. Birrieria PDX

16544 SE Division St., 971-336-6804. 11 am-9 pm Tuesday-Thursday, 9:30 am-9 pm Friday-Sunday. The birria boom has reached Portland, and this cart in deep Southeast is one of its main purveyors. Birria de res, like its sibling, barbacoa de res, has a long tradition in many parts of Mexico, but Birrieria PDX’s options go beyond classic applications: Other inventive options include the keto taco, made with crispy melted cheese instead of a tortilla, and birria ramen, the Japanese noodle soup made with the broth of the birria, resulting in something that tastes more like pho or Thai boat noodles.

2. Sari Ramyun

2713 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-841-5149, sari.smartonlineorder.com. 11 am-8 pm Sunday-Thursday, 11 am-9 pm Saturday-Sunday. Typically, the phrase “ramyun” refers in Korea to instant noodles, the peninsular answer to Top Ramen. But chef Tommy Shin’s stall in the Zipper food court specializes in a chicken noodle soup— well, technically chicken and beef broth, with meltin-your-mouth brisket slices floating on top. This is a heretical opinion, given the proximity of Basilisk, but Sari makes the best chicken in the Zipper.

3. Magna

2525 SE Clinton St., 503-395-8542, magnapdx.com. 5-9 pm Thursday-Saturday. It’s past time for a food city like Portland to have its own great Filipino restaurant, and one year ago, we got one. Chef Carlo Lamagna’s dishes are both intimately familiar and achingly cool, with showstoppers like the crispy pata, or fried pork leg, and pancit bihon, the Filipino version of Chinese glass noodles—and now you can enjoy it all on patio furniture on a closed-off block of Southeast Clinton.

4. Eem

3808 N Williams Ave., Suite 127, 971-295-1645, eempdx.com. 11 am-9 pm Sunday-Thurday, 11 am-10 pm Friday-Saturday. The superstar restaurant from the trio behind Hat Yai, Matt’s BBQ and the Shipwreck, Eem somehow manages to exceed all expectations. The white curry with brisket burnt ends is a dish so rich and nuanced it’s almost without precedent, while the chopped barbecue fried rice is another mashup that’s bafflingly simple yet unbeatable in flavor.

WESLEY LAPOINTE

5. Hapa PDX Ramen and Whiskey

3848 SE Gladstone St., 503-376-9246, hapapdx.us. 4-9 pm Wednesday-Monday. Lots of food carts make the leap to brick-and-mortar, but rarely is the effect quite so sexy as it is at Hapa. The soup here is a blend of two beloved cuisines: In the “G-Special” ramen, you’ll recognize elements of a Hawaiian plate lunch and a Tokyo ramen. But this is very much an izakaya, and drinks are as much the attraction as the soup: The ginger ale-sake highball is worth traveling across town for.

WESTEROS: A girl perches on horseback in Ingeborg Gerdes’ Somewhere, Nevada.

Personal Geographies

A memorial retrospective of Ingeborg Gerdes photographs blurs the line between the myth and reality of the American West.

BY ANN GUO

There is often a familiar script to depictions of the American West, and it goes a little bit like this: canyonlands, open skies, cowboys on horses, idealized indigeneity, and rusty cars winding along desert highways. The list goes on.

Photographer Ingeborg Gerdes no doubt wielded an awareness of these recycled motifs while turning her own sharp lens on the Western condition. An exhibition of the late photographer’s 50-year repertoire at Blue Sky Gallery, titled Out West, reflects on German-born Gerdes’ careful approach to capturing life and culture in the West’s desolate landscapes.

In a smattering of both black-andwhite and color—the photographer revisited the themes many times over the course of 50 years—Gerdes’ subjects are unposed yet poised, caught in the free-flow movements of daily life.

In one composition, a girl perches on horseback in Nevada, sharing the frame with a stray Texaco sign and a dog. In another, a stuffed antelope stands alongside an Oregon road, as if about to cross. A nondescript man bends precariously over the lip of his run-down truck while the grasslands of Montana stretch beyond the curve of his exposed back. The front of a dusty-pink movie theater, flanked by an abandoned opera house, shows a single film—Star Wars, one of the most famous pop culture allegories to Western expansionism.

By reworking common myths of the American West, Gerdes peels back layers of camp while carving out her own essential truths beneath. Some of these truths are common—the unshakable, almost spiritual, sense of solitude on land that still remembers its own freedom, for example, or the unusual eccentricity of life in the region.

Gerdes cannot pick these elements out from her Western compositions. Nor does she desire to; doing so would be to remove their soul. Her bare studies are akin to a portrait of a character offstage—absent makeup, lights and action, the ghost of their role remains in subtleties of speech or movement. The player and the played have morphed into something inseparable; it is no longer possible to distinguish between reality and myth.

Perhaps the most intriguing addition to the series at Blue Sky is the photographer’s focus on her own vulnerable body. In one frame, a triangular hollow in Gerdes’ sinewed neck casts a dark relief against her pale spine. The photographer touches herself in another, the intimate act veiled by sheer underwear and a patterned robe.

These works, from Gerdes’ Autobiography series, suggest that as she began to understand unfamiliar Western lands, Gerdes was, in turn, drawn to the valleys and canyons of her most personal geographies.

SEE IT: Blue Sky Gallery, 122 NW 8th Ave., 503-225-0210. Noon-5 pm Wednesday-Saturday, through Aug. 28.