Lore Tea and Coffee opens in Camas

Christian and Tara Kelly, owners of Lore Tea and Coffee in downtown Camas, have a tale to tell. Once upon a time, two high school sweethearts married young, had four kids, struggled but worked hard, found their way to Washington and took a chance on a new business. This new chapter may lead to a happy ending. The Kellys bought Hidden River Coffee on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Everett Street in Camas on June 1. On Oct. 2, Lore Tea and Coffee officially opened under its new name and logo: a moon rising over the mountains. Christian Kelly said his hope is that the new coffee house will be the nexus of many stories. But first, they’re making a few well-considered changes. “There’s this idea with coffee shops that they went really minimalistic and everything was hard and metal. We’ve been turning it into, ‘Let’s have a living room and let people hang out for three hours,’ ” said Kelly, 35. The Kellys plan to bring in sofas for comfortable seating and build a floor-to-ceiling bookcase next to the entrance, where they’ll sell a selection of used books curated by Wayfarer Book Co. The shop will also eventually offer a small lending library in partnership with Autumn Leaf Books in Camas. A bike rack from Camas Bikes sits in the outdoor seating area. The coffee shop sells its own tea blends but also offers seven loose-leaf teas from the recently opened Savor & Steep in Washougal. (Tea lovers, take note: flavors include smoky lapsang souchong, milky oolong and lemoncino rooibos.) Other local business partnerships include flowers from Junebug Flower Farm on the table; the Washougal flower grower sells direct to customers from a small stand outside the coffee shop. And guests can soon browse a rotating gallery of art and ceramics by local artists. Lore Tea and Coffee still serves coffee from the Hidden River roastery, but will expand food offerings to include sandwiches, breakfast sandwiches, paninis and, during the cold season, soup. All baked goods are made on site by local baker Jenna Ellis and Kelly’s oldest daughter, high school sophomore Emry Kelly. Treats include sweet and savory scones, carrot cake cupcakes, muffins and cookies, and seasonal Saturday specials like apple hand pies and chocolate ganache espresso cupcakes. Lore also offers another delightful twist: mocktails and cocktails from 5-9 p.m. every Friday, like the pumpkin spice white Russian, maple espresso martini and the hot huckleberry pie with whiskey, local huckleberries and apple cider. On Sunday morning, guests can sip mimosas. Perhaps the most important thing to note is that a $3.50 cup of drip coffee comes with free refills for as long as you stay. And all coffee and espresso drinks, no matter how fancy, are under $8. “I’ve been broke plenty of times in my life. Sometimes a cup of coffee is the thing that gives you a breath of fresh air,” Kelly said. “There are plenty of people who come in that only have a couple dollars. The pressure that a lot of us feel a lot of the time, you can put that down for a couple of hours, and it’s not going to bleed you dry.” The family moved to Camas on July 4, 2025, and Hidden River soon became their social hub. Kelly, a Tennessee native, had worked as a barista while earning his Bachelor of Arts in English from Oklahoma State University. He developed a passion for coffee and helped to open a coffee shop in Oklahoma City when he was 22. He dreamed of owning his own but sales, at the time, was a more lucrative career path. Kelly moved his growing family frequently for work — 16 times in 14 years, he said — but promised his children that when they entered high school, they’d stay put until all of them had graduated. They considered New York state, Denver, Colo., and Seattle. Kelly said he was in Seattle for about 45 minutes before deciding he couldn’t live there. But friends in Bend, Ore., had told them about the good schools and small-town charm of Camas. “It’s the best place I’ve ever lived,” said Kelly. “Like a boulder rolling down a mountain that hits a crevice and stops moving and then moss starts growing on top. That’s what it’s like to live here. We settled so fast.” Hidden River wasn’t officially for sale, but Kelly heard that the owner might be amenable to selling if the conditions were right. Kelly called Hidden River co-owner Brandon Pasa and the pair sat down on the coffee shop’s front porch to talk possibilities. “What was supposed to be a 15-minute conversation was actually three hours,” said Kelly, who also works for an anti-fraud firm as well as running his own company, Myle Consulting, which builds sales teams for startups. “By the end of the conversation we had a handshake agreement. Basically, I asked him and he said yes.” The Kellys bought the century-old clapboard house that had housed Hidden River and used to be a fish market. They kept the original floors and other historic details. They also kept Hidden River’s manager, Amelia Zahler-Green, and every one of the staff. Kelly trained them in the lore of coffee craft, including how to create latte art, he said, to add that little extra bit of finesse. But the seasonal drink selection, all with house-made syrups, hardly needs any more finessing. Current flavors include the de rigueur pumpkin spice latte with real pumpkin spice syrup; caramel apple chai with caramel apple butter syrup; the inventive baklava latte (baklavatte?) with cardamom, pistachio syrup and pistachio milk; and Kelly’s current favorite, the Sweater Weather, with cinnamon spice syrup, brown sugar and a warm spice blend of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. (“It’s fall in a cup,” Kelly said.) Kelly calls that first sip of a good cup of coffee “the aha moment.” “The weight comes down, even if only for a few seconds,” Kelly said. “It’s really great to be building a space that encourages that the whole time you’re here, not just for a few seconds.”

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