A World of Spices at Portland's Spice & Tea Exchange

By: Julie Blakley | August 10 2010
Posted in Portland - Find It - Portland

For anyone who loves to cook, walking into Portland’s Spice & Tea Exchange is like being a kid a candy store. Tantalizing, colorful displays of a huge variety of spices, salts, rubs, sugars and more line the shelves, ideas for new recipes at every turn—it’s a cook's dream store.

Photo: Julie Blakley

The Spice & Tea Exchange, which opened in January at 536 S.W. Broadway, is the first franchise of the business west of the Rockies. The store's massive selection of teas and spices is imported from around the world.

Wall-to-wall shelves contain hundreds of jars of exotic salts, sugars, teas, and spices priced by the ounce—making it easy and affordable to experiment with new spices and flavors (you can buy just enough for a single recipe if you want).

The Exchange also has custom blends mixed in-house like the espresso steak rub (which uses local Stumptown beans) or the smoky Backwoods Hickory blend. If one of the popular blends doesn’t suit your needs, you can make up your own and have it mixed at the blending station.

Photo: Julie Blakley

The Spice & Tea Exchange’s best quality is definitely the huge selection of fresh gourmet spices. The store has everything from A to Z; including a huge selection of chili powders, cheese powders, smoked powders and more. If you can't find it here, you probably can’t find it anywhere.

Owners of the Portland Spice & Tea Exchange, Rob and Ivy Liniger, first discovered the shop on a trip to Saint Augustine, Florida.

“We fell in love with it right from the start,” said Rob Liniger. Less than six months after walking into the store, the Linigers opened a franchise of their own in downtown Portland.

Liniger says he and his wife have long enjoyed cooking and having fun with food. He first started experimenting with spices in college when he was trying to figure out “how many ways to make ramen taste different.”

Now Liniger has access to limitless ways to make ramen—or chicken, or whatever else—taste different. I asked Liniger for some of his tips on spices.

Photo: Julie Blakley

Rob’s Spice Tips

• A little goes a long way. The spices most of us are used to buying at the grocery store are older, and therefore less potent. When buying fresh spices, they pack much more of a punch.
• Don’t store your spices near the stove, as humidity and heat speed the process of the spices losing flavor and intensity. Keep them in a dark cupboard away from the stove.
• Don’t be afraid to try new things and be open to trying new spices and flavors. Especially since the Spice & Tea Exchange will sell you as little as one tablespoon for a recipe, you have nothing to lose experimenting. Spices can add a whole new dimension to food.
• If you are learning your way around a kitchen or are overwhelmed by where to start, try one of the custom blends to start. They are pre-blended and tasty and make it easy to kick a meal up to the next notch.

Find The Spice & Tea Exchange at 536 SW Broadway in Portland, or visit their website and blog, which has cooking tips and great recipe ideas (like the super simple shrimp scampi with Vik’s Garlic Fix).