Does Portland brew -- and roast, and buy -- its coffee better than Seattle now? That's the theme of a KUOW report today by Chantal Anderson, who quotes Sprudge.com co-founder Jordan Michelman: "Seattle is very stuck in a mold of what coffee culture was like 20 years ago and third wave coffee is very, very different from that."

What's third wave? Michelman told KUOW: "It works on much more of a thinking about it almost from a gastronomy stand point of being really, really obsessed about seed to cup, where it comes from, who's roasting it, where it's roasted, the duration of time, having the choices, seasonality, all these kinds of things. There's nowhere that does that here."

Sprudge wrote on Twitter that "npr took us out of context." (Disclosure: Sprudge does not dig my coverage of Fair Trade, among other things.)

Either way, Michelman would not be the first to say Portland has passed us, with high-profile Stumptown Coffee leading the way (pictured: its flagship store in Portland). Sam Lewontin, who goes by coffeeandbikes on Twitter, wrote a thoughtful post about it on espresso machine maker Slayer's web site last month.

In the KUOW report, Lewontin mentions the shackles of street food regulations in Seattle, which the city and county are working to change. Their efforts are largely aimed at opening up carts for vending beyond coffee, popcorn, hot dogs and flowers. But one proposed change would get rid of city restrictions on cart size and defer to more liberal county guidelines, said Gary Johnson at the Seattle Department of Planning and Development. And, he said, he welcomes comments about cart rule changes.

So, what do you think? Has Portland eclipsed Seattle at coffee?