A Pour-Over I Did Not Expect in Friday Harbor

5 min read · Updated August 1, 2026

I packed an AeroPress for San Juan Island and then found an excellent hand pour-over at Medio Cafe, the coffee bar inside our own hotel in Friday Harbor.

I packed a coffee kit for San Juan Island because I assumed I would need it. An AeroPress Go, a hand grinder, a pocket scale, and a bag from home, all of it built around the theory that two nights somewhere small means bad coffee unless you bring your own. I wrote that kit up in travel coffee setup, and I stand by it. It is also the reason the first morning was slightly humbling.

Our room was in Friday Harbor Suites, and the cafe on the ground floor of the building we were sleeping in turned out to be the best coffee of the trip.

Finding it by accident

Medio Cafe is at 680 Spring Street, which is the same address as the hotel. I did not research it. I walked past it on the way out with a grinder still warm in the room upstairs, saw a menu board with three single-origin pour-overs on it, and changed my plans for the morning.

The board is more ambitious than a hotel cafe has any need to be. Three hand pour-overs when I was there: a Costa Rican from Espiritu San Luis, an anaerobic honey SL28; a Colombian from Finca Las Flores; and a washed Bourbon from Masha in Kayanza, Burundi. Espresso runs as a single origin rather than a blend, with a medium Brazilian and a light option. There is Kyoto slow-drip cold brew, Vietnamese cold brew, Mizuba matcha, and Red Blossom teas.

The coffee

I ordered the Colombian, which was Stereoscope’s Las Flores Java from Acevedo, Huila. The card listed pink pomelo, lychee, sparkling, and star fruit.

Tasting notes usually work as a suggestion. You read them, you look for them, and you find something in the neighbourhood if you are generous with yourself. This was not that. The lychee was simply there, first and unmistakable, and the pomelo came through as citrus pith rather than sweet grapefruit, which kept the cup from going syrupy. The acidity had a prickle that made sense of the word sparkling on the card.

It cost 8.25 dollars when we were there, which is real money for a cup of filter coffee, and I would pay it again. I wrote the coffee up on its own as this week’s featured pick, including what the Java variety actually is and why a washed coffee tastes like that. Both answers are more interesting than I expected.

The rest of the counter

My wife ordered a sparkling strawberry matcha, which is not exactly on the menu. She asked, the barista said he could make it, and it arrived green and fizzy over ice with a strawberry base underneath. The specials board did have a strawberry matcha tonic on it, so he may have been working from that. Either way, the willingness to just make it was the point. He was friendly about the whole order and knew what was on the pour-over list without checking.

The specials board also had a banana latte, a lychee cold brew, and something called a Mont Blanc. The food is made in house, and there are handmade donuts.

Practical notes

Medio is closed on Wednesdays. I would not quote you opening hours because the three sources I can find disagree with each other, so check before you plan a morning around it. It sits between the ferry terminal and the airport, both within easy walking distance.

There is a small play area by the window, and what is on the table is a wooden toy espresso machine, complete with a group head, a little portafilter, a kettle, wooden cups, and a wooden croissant. Specialty coffee bars are not usually built with a toddler in mind, and whoever chose that had the right idea.

So why did I carry a grinder to an island

Because the kit is still the right call, and one good cafe does not change the arithmetic. I brewed in the room most mornings, before anything opened, which is the whole point of packing it. What the kit buys you is the first cup, not the best one.

My AeroPress was never going to beat a proper pour-over of a carefully processed Colombian on a good grinder. It does not have to. It has to be better than the lobby drip at seven in the morning, and it is.

Friday Harbor has more coffee than a town of 2,600 needs. Third House Coffee on Mullis Street roasts on the island in small batches and is worth going out of your way for. San Juan Island Roasters has been roasting on San Juan since 1990 and sits by the ferry at Cannery Landing, and Salty Fox is a few doors along on Front Street. Neither of those last two fit into two nights, which I regret.

Track it in BeanBench

Cafe coffee is easy to lose. You drink something excellent on a trip, you mean to remember the roaster and the lot, and a week later you have the name of the town and nothing else. That is the gap a log closes.

In BeanBench you can log a cafe visit with the shop, the drink, the coffee, what it cost, and whether you would order it again, then find it later next to everything you have brewed at home. From here, read the featured pick for the bean itself, the travel coffee setup for the kit I packed, or coffee varieties for what is actually in the cup.