Stumptown coffee is OVER! The news of Portland, Ore.’s beloved coffee roaster’s purchase by California-based Peet’s Coffee & Tea hit hipsters hard. And they took to Twitter to complain about it.
https://twitter.com/thevowel/status/651497907837865985
https://twitter.com/chelsea_tol/status/651802061311361024
https://twitter.com/mikegreve/status/651562974105206784
The good news is, Stumptown isn’t going anywhere. “We both fit well under a family of coffee brands run independently and treated as separate businesses but with similar values,” Stumptown president Joth Ricci said. Meaning that Stumptown customers aren’t going to be seeing Peet’s coffee for sale in their favorite hangout spot anytime soon.
Even still, many bearded Portlanders are calling Stumptown a sellout. In an interesting examination on the source of the Stumptown buyout outrage, Time linked the disappointment hipsters are currently expressing to their particular attitude of embracing the underdog. “We love the little guy, so there’s a natural brand connection,” Debbie McInnis, marketing professor at the USC Marshall School of Business told Time. It’s a connection that breaks down as soon as the tiny indie company we love so much (Stumptown) is purchased by a seemingly soulless big-time corporation (Peet’s).
So, yeah. It’s a tragedy for those on the West Coast. But for the rest of us in America, not too much is going to change. We’ll just be happy as long as we can still find those dark, stubby bottles of cold-brew Stumptown coffee in the refrigerators at Whole Foods.
