Bellingham, Washington’s Camber Coffee has once again teamed up with Death Cab—and for the first time with The Postal Service—to create custom coffees to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Give Up and Transatlanticism.

…And so it came to pass that I was fortunate enough to have a bag from Bellingham-based roaster Camber Coffee (long a favorite around the Imbibe office) cross my desk.

We’re always delighted when Bellingham, Washington’s Camber Coffee collaborates with a visual artist for their annual Artist Series coffee offerings.

Today we’re featuring a beautiful band/brand collaboration between the iconic upper PNW soft emo/melodic 21st century rock band Death Cab For Cutie and delicious Bellingham coffee roaster Camber Coffee

Tasty breakfast options in downtown Bellingham can be leisurely or grab and go. For something quick, you can try a cranberry cardamom rose scone and a latte at the trendy coffee shop Camber.

Each year, Bellingham-based roasting company Camber Coffee announces its Artist Series, showcasing a year-long collaborative effort with an artist. This year, Camber Coffee announced its partnership with Colombian artist Jhonny Núñez. Núñez is an internationally renowned illustrator and created an origin harvest scene for Camber which can be found on limited coffee releases, a Fellow Move mug, a jigsaw puzzle, and more.

Q Graders are the sommeliers of the coffee world, trained to detect the most imperceptible defects and differences in beans. Camber’s was founded by three such gold star coffee enthusiasts in 2015 and have since made their way into a handful of the best coffee shops in America like G&B and Go Get Em Tiger in LA. From their Flagship in Bellingham, Washington (halfway between Seattle and Vancouver) they roast coffees available by the bag.

In a state brimming with retro charm, this Bellingham standout has been quite happy to bound ahead of the pack, roasting some of the most essential coffees in the Northwest right now.

You can find this Bellingham coffee roaster’s beans at a few spots in Seattle — including Greenwood’s Coyle’s Bakeshop — but here at the flagship cafe there are even more small-batch single origin roasts available, plus a full menu of pastries and a few larger dishes. The lemon olive oil cake is wonderfully moist with a nice amount of bright citrus bite. The Standard biscuit breakfast sandwich, with housemade maple chicken breakfast sausage, egg, cheese and a sunflower seed gremolata, was all the things you want a breakfast sandwich to be — slightly greasy and super filling.

End-of-the-year drinks conversations are generally dominated by what is served at sundown. There’s Champagne, celebratory beers, hot toddy tips, and more to discuss. But for me, the real revelatory moment of the past few weeks has been served at sunup, a special release from Imbibe 75 alum, Camber Coffee: El Salvador Bernardina. The Washington-based roaster has worked for years with the Pacas family in El Salvador and are among the small number of U.S. roasters to source the rare and limited Bernardina variety–discovered in 2008 on the Pacas’ Los Bellotos farm. This lot, grown on the El Retiro farm which has been owned by the family since 1927, is naturally processed and bagged in Camber’s 2021 Artist Series packaging. Aromatic nutty, umami depths begin each brew process, then transform into jasmine, cherry, and stone-fruit flavors in the cup. It’s a mind-opening way to start each day, and the perfect beginning to a new year. $40 for 8 oz., cambercoffee.com