Speckled Ax

Love the décor here. Great organic coffee options and local pastries. Everything looked so good. I got the caramel latte the first time I went and it was the bomb diggity. Second day I got the Costa Rican coffee blend– I think I’m more of a latte person, but it was good coffee. Quick service and friendly staff and helpful, patient to answer questions. Oh, latte art! I love me some latte art.

I’m visiting from Chicago and frequent coffee shops out there in Wicker Park. This one I felt had an older crowd vibe to it. I’m in my mid 20s, but no complaints!
I’m pretty straight forward with my coffee because I like it strong, so I ordered the Americano. Wow, it was strong. It was my second one of the day around 6pm, but this one definitely had me feeling wired for a little. It will also get your system to clean its slate if you catch my drift. :p

I came here for the convenience of being next door having a delightful dinner & needing me a caffeine rush. Atmosphere was insanely quiet. No music. No smiles. No hellos. And surprisingly, it was a full house. The barista was sitting in the corner, by the closet eating dinner, w|o a care in the world who came in. She looked snooty. So much for being friendly. Hide away. I wanted something sweet and got a chai w| whole milk. It took forever to make but it came out w| a fancy foam design. BUT it tasted like boiled water. What in the world did you give me? A tasteless blaaaaahhh of a drink. Should have gone to Starbucks down the street.

Great baristas. Very patient and informative. Poured beautiful shots. Mmm delicious. Thanks girls!

Coffee is extremely bitter — tasted like a cross between chocolate, pine-​sap and bile.
Awesome atmosphere and people but the coffee is terrible. And it literally took 8 minutes to drip brew. Stupid. Starbucks is a block away.

Speckled Ax would do great in Brooklyn as well. The staff is great at making a tasty cup, but will make you feel like a tiny human being doing so. The interior is tiny yet it somehow felt like it took hours to walk down to the register because of the stares. The cold brew was sublime, especially with fruity pebble milk, the key to my heart. Yes, they make a special milk by dissolving fruity pebbles and it is as delicious as it sounds. Because of the size of the place, it’s not a place you really sit to enjoy the coffee, so it’s best to take on the road.

Really good coffee and expresso. Not too expensive either! My husband and I drove through Portland on our way up to Bar Harbor and stumbled upon this cute coffee shop with a last minute recommendation from a friend of a friend. My husband loved the coffee here so much he bought three bags and now regretting he didn’t get more.

A great addition to the neighborhood. Stopped in and had an espresso with steamed milk… incredibly delicious ¹¹⁄₁₀.
One star detracted for a really sub-​par dirty chai latte. Very bitter and thin, made only marginally better by sweetening.

Full disclosure: my brother is one of the roasters/​baristas here.
I love hanging out to do some work or socialize at the Ax. Low key music of various genres, multiple types of seating (tables, benches, bar), friendly and knowledgeable staff, healthy (ish) snacks.
Every customer is treated like a regular. They’re very good at helping you figure out what you want by taste if you’re intimidated by the sparely detailed menu or a relative coffee cretin (as I was). My personal favorite is the cold brew. It takes so much ground coffee to make at home that it feels like a steal at $ ³⁄₁₆ oz.
Last but definitely not least I love the attention to detail in bean selection, flavor, and roast using Maine materials (sap & wood). The unpretentious commitment to excellence is a big draw.
Also, Fruity Pebbles milk.

Some of the best cold brew I’ve had in New England!
I found out from this place from a friend who lives in San Francisco and claimed that it was one of the best coffee shops he’s been to on the eastern seaboard. SF has a tough coffee crowd so a compliment from him means a lot.
And he was absolutely right!
I found the staff to be a little cold, especially for Portland. But the coffee quality was good enough where it didn’t really matter.
This place knows cold brew.

I felt like such a fish out of water when I visited the Speckled Axe for the first time. As someone else mentioned in one of their reviews, it does in fact feel and look like an episode out of Portlandia. The brewing tools and machines look like something you’d see in a chemistry class. Or a meth lab. The bow-​ties and crop tops made me feel old. I’m only 26.
The menu was short and confusing. I thought I knew coffee terminology thanks to my many years of Starbucks brews, but boy was I wrong. I looked over at my squeeze and he had a bewildered look on his face, clearly overwhelmed by the non-​conventional coffee shop set-​up and options.
We had no idea what to order. I now keep seeing on Unilocal about some delicious caramel latte, but the menu didn’t obviously convey how to order that. We approached the girls at the register with a deer-​in-​the-​headlights look and told them we’d never been here before. They were very nice, but didn’t really offer up the kind of guidance I was hoping for. I managed to navigate the menu and we ended up leaving with two, on the small side, lattes. They were very good, but for the cost/​size ration I’ll stick to my usual coffee spots.
I feel like three stars is more accurate, but the two star description of «Meh. I’ve experience better» is way more fitting.

— I look at the minimalist menu, don’t see a latte on offer despite the rave reviews on here about their caramel latte, make decision to switch up intended order accordingly —
Me: «Hi, can I have a cold brew iced coffee with caramel sauce?»
— the 2 hipster baristas glance at each other in a smug way —
Barista: «Yeeeeaaaaah, so we actually recommend pairing the caramel sauce with an iced latte? The smoothness of the caramel is a perfect counterpoint for the roasty espresso, whereas the cold brew’s rich floral notes are best left on their own.»
Me: «…OK, let’s do the latte then.»
To be fair, the baristas’ tone wasn’t smarmy, it was more helpful and not terribly offputting, but I’m just giggling at the whole interaction because it seemed like something straight out of Portlandia. Too cool for school, this place.
As for the latte, it was indeed delicious. Note that they did not ask about milk preference and defaulted to whole milk (pretty sure that’s the only cow’s milk they carry anyways, this isn’t a skim kind of place), which was OK with me but if it bothers you do speak up.

This place is cute and quaint, and a great place to check out for espresso, at least once.
The service was friendly and the place was clean.
I was very disappointed with their beverage menu as well as that there is only on size for espresso drinks, I believe an 8oz cup.
As always, I ordered an Americano. It came in the Super small cup which was left half full for milk… By the time I was half way down for the store, my drink was cold :/

I’ll start by saying that we LOVE the Speckled Ax– we love purchasing their ground coffee for home, and I’ve never had a better caramel latte (made with Scratch’s housemade caramel sauce… amazing.)
Unfortunately, we’re putting the brakes on our visits. There’s one particularly grumpy barista who just totally ruined our experience. When my husband asked which of the donuts (from Holy Donuts) he’d recommend with his coffee, the barista gave him a sour look and said, quite seriously, «I don’t get paid to talk about donuts.»
Seriously?! We deserve better service than this.
Have a talk with your staff, and we’ll consider coming back– we’d hate to give this place up for good.

If there is a coffee version of an existential crisis, then I think I experienced it yesterday during my first visit to Speckled Ax. I love coffee. If I’m not having at least two cups of coffee a day then it’s probably because I’ve fallen down a well or I’ve been handcuffed to a radiator just out of reach of my French press. Coffee is so great I’ve probably written it in for president a couple times.
Everything I’ve read about Speckled Ax has been glowing: They roast beans using locally sourced wood and sap. They use weird laboratory tools and Science to assist with coffee brewing. Jesus himself comes down once a week to smite any beans that may end up being ‘overly acidic’. I was pretty excited to check it out, and I finally had a reason to be over in the Arts District area of Congress Street to do just that.
The inside is gorgeous. Everything is perfectly painted and designed. Everything. It’s like an interactive art installation in the Arts District. The white tin (?) ceiling, the small wooden tables, the counter, the floor — it all feels like it just opened yesterday. The owners really put a lot of time and effort into the design and execution of this place, and it’s quite an accomplishment.
While I was chilling out on my laptop for 45 minutes, 4 dogs came in with owners. I feel like there MUST be some ordinance in Portland requiring at least two dog to be present in every commercial property at any given time. People dressed like Paul Bunyan were having quiet conversations with people dressed like David Bowie… but hey, that’s the Arts District for you.
The tall, thin gentleman running the counter when I was there might be the most laid back combination of friendly, indifferent and aloof I’ve ever met. If you could get a master’s degree in Barista Studies, then this guy would be a professor. He was helpful in pointing out the nuances of each roast listed on the board and pulled a small card with the wifi password out of thin air to hand it to me when I was walking up to him, before I could even inquire. So cool.
The coffee I had was $ 3.25. This wasn’t so cool, and is about $ 1 more than I’d pay anywhere else. The coffee was brought to my table about 5 minutes later in a cute cup and a small carafe, so the adorability of what I got helped defray the feeling over overpaying.
The coffee itself was a very bitter. Surprising, as I was expecting something more balanced, given the reputation. This is where the coffee-​stential crisis came in. Speckled Ax treats coffee so seriously that I thought for a second that perhaps this bitter coffee was ‘good’ coffee, and perhaps every experience I had had with coffee up until this point had been incorrect. After another sip: nope, I’d been right the whole time. This was not a good cup of coffee.
The other problem is that — for as nice a place as it is — I felt a bit out of place. Usually a place this fancy/​artsy doesn’t allow folks like me in. I typically like simple coffee shops with good coffee, fair, pricing, plentiful seating, decent baked goods, friendly courteous staff, and free wireless. No artsiness or pretentiousness. That’s it. It’s definitely a good coffee shop for some people, but not the people like me who spend two or three days a week working remotely out of one.
I will give the coffee another shot next time I’m in the neighborhood. Maybe I can get the rating up to a 4?

I’ve tried a few different coffee places in Portland and this is my favorite one. I like the minimalist décor and the simple set up. It made for a good place to meet up with a friend or get some work done in peace. I just got an espresso with steamed milk and it was really well made — nothing bitter or sour, just a great little cup of espresso. They serve Holy Donuts too, which is kind of fun!

I need to give them a second try.
We went in, because duh: lumberjack coffee shop. But I was confused by what was going on. Our coffee was good, but then against most coffee tastes good to me. Dan didn’t like it, but it’s not really his thing, so I can’t fault the coffee. I just didn’t get enough of a unique or extraordinary vibe off it. Maybe if I read reviews beforehand and new what to do/​get. I will try it again though.

I. love. this. place.
I wish that I lived closer so that I could go here every day for work. It would totally be worth waking up early so I could have this deliciousness every day.
The Speckled Ax knows their coffee. As a former barista, I can tell you, its hard to get the flavor just right but the people here always hit their target. I have never had an overly bitter or burnt coffee. They are super friendly and even though the offerings are definitely a little more «artisanal» than most cafes, the staff will happily explain it to you.
Look, their menu is straightforward and simple. You come in for coffee, you might sit in the cozy booth and enjoy or you might take it to go. You move on with your day, but the coffee that you get here will give you an extra spring in your step.

I’m admittedly not the best person to write this review. I do love coffee, but I’m completely unpretentious about it and not like, super impressed by all of the fancy types and ways to make it.
The guy doing the pour over looked appropriately nonplussed, which I’ve come to expect with pour-​over coffee. The less emotionally involved my barista is, the better the coffee (it seems). My brother tried to get me to get the crazy gravity bong-​looking method of preparation but it was like $ 6. So no.
If you’re like, really interested in coffee, and know a lot about it, and want the absolute best, then you should come here. Or if you’re really close by and want a cup. Otherwise there are a million other coffee shops in Portland.

wicked damn fine cold brew +
REG (cows) milk, almond milk, soy milk, fruity pebbles cereal milk (a la momofuku)! +
surliest of surly hipster staff (would it kill ya to smile? just a little? it’s Maine. people are supposed to be nice here) —
small but cute and clean space +
Overall, I’m a fan.