*On the Path follows a Stumptown employee out and about as they traverse their home city. This month we're hanging with Erik Keating, aka Sweet E, a roaster at our Red Hook roastery. Erik is from the Portland area originally, and started working for Stumptown as a production tech at our Portland HQ. Over the last five years he has worked in Stumptown cafes in Portland and New York, before joining the NYC roasting team in 2018. Erik is legendary at Stumptown for his kindness, positivity, and utter devotion to the Portland Timbers. Here’s a sneak peek at his day.*

1)  Wake up and take my dog, Amélie, out by 8 AM. Amélie is our first dog; my partner Lindsey and I got her last October through an amazing rescue organization called Korean K9 Rescue. She is a 10 month old Jindo/Belgian Malinois mix with a dash of Akita sprinkled in, and we named her after my all time favorite movie (*Alien* is a close second though). She and her 3 sisters came from Korea after being rescued from the dog meat industry. She's beautiful, unique, cuddly, spazzy and super protective (which we're working on). She's our best friend and we can't wait to watch her grow with us!

2)  Come home and make a Chemex for Lindsey & me.

2a)  Stay at home a few extra minutes to say goodbye to my dog!

3)  Get my bike out of my building’s storage and head to work around 9:30 AM.

4)  Head through Dumbo, under the Brooklyn Bridge, and on to Red Hook. I love riding my bike all over Brooklyn and Manhattan but the best and most convenient way for me to get to work is actually one of the most peaceful and fun rides you can do in all of New York City. We live in Greenpoint and are literally 5 blocks from the top of Brooklyn. I take a full bike path that goes from Greenpoint through Williamsburg, across the water from all the Manhattan skyscrapers, runs along the Brooklyn Navy Yards and then shoots into Dumbo, where every day I get to ride under the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges and then coast on along the East River until I hit Red Hook. It's such an awesome way to start and end my day. Midtown, Lower Manhattan, the 3 bridges in Brooklyn. Along with tourists and other locals, I see iconic NY statues and buildings at different times of the day and night, and I get to see how the city changes throughout the seasons all while being healthy, happy, and not being underground in a subway. Cycling is rad!

 5)  Arrive at work by 10 AM.

6)  Roast our most popular coffee, Hair Bender, for most of the day.

7)  Get off work at 6PM and head into the city, ironically, to switch trains back to Brooklyn.

8)  Get vegan cheeseburgers for dinner at Toad Style.

9)  Get matching Stumptown Slurpers tattoo with my friend & team co-founder Austin Finn. Stumptown Slurpers is the co-ed soccer team that I created with the help of a few friends from Stumptown along with other Portland Timbers fans here in NYC Timbers Army. We started playing in the fall of 2018 and I literally came up with the name Slurpers as we were cupping coffee the day of our first game. It was destiny: the perfect name for a coffee company’s co-ed team! The Budgett Frog (which you may recognize from internet memes) became our mascot because we play on Wednesdays, we started a #WednesdaysForever hashtag, produced jerseys by hand with a screen-printed coffee colored Stumptown logo, and even got a shout out from soccer podcast & TV stars The Cooligans!

10)  End the night by getting back on the train home with the beautiful skyline glowing. Pretty great way to end a work week in my honest opinion!