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

Across each year of the Sprudge Twenty series, the project strives to highlight the work of contributors up and down the coffee chain, from producers to educators, roasters to importers, advocates and community organizers, as well as those whose contribution involves making space for the beauty of coffee at the cafe level. The Sprudge Twenty interview series continues today in conversation with Gloria Baldwin, a coffee professional based at Camber Coffee in Bellingham, Washington.

This week we’re catching up with Bellingham, Washington’s very own Camber Coffee, who launched an exquisite Artist Series in Winter of 2019. Back then, Camber Coffee co-founder David Yake told us that Camber has always been a representation of their love of coffee, people, food, art, and the natural world. “Having the chance to feature work by artists we admire is a privilege,” Yake says. We wanted to loop back around with Yake to find out how the series has been going, and to spotlight their newest offerings designed by UK-based artist Tilly Mint.

Coffee culture has so permeated the Pacific Northwest that you don’t have to look just to Seattle to find exceptional beans. About 90 miles north is Bellingham, where Camber founders Andrew Bowman, Todd Elliott and David Yake met at a different coffee company. The trio’s venture took off in 2015, finding its way into top restaurants, such as Canlis and the Willows Inn. Camber brings out the sweetness and complexity of its beans, while avoiding being too light or acidic.