This is an old page … a very old page that served as an “about us” at one time. It’s nice to look back at the pictures of our location(s).
As of May 2005 we are at located at 2823 Adeline Street in Oakland CA at the border with Emeryville. Here’s some images of the Adeline Building and our move. We also have photos of the Sweet Maria’s indoor soccer team, Cafe Fuerte FC
About Sweet Maria’s Coffee: Our Little Shop
Yes, Sweet Maria’s Coffee does actually exist outside the virtual Internet playground. We started in Ohio, and have now returned to California. Emeryville … sounds like a small town but it is about 40 square blocks wedged between Oakland and Berkeley. It used to be called “the armpit of Northern California” back in the day when Emeryville had the largest scrap heap of crushed cars in the state. Now, in the same spot, is a giant Ikea. Times change. You can’t rent a house in Emeryville for under $2000 a month. Welcome to the Bay Area!
So our overhead has gone up a bit, but the fact is, we are located 5 minutes from the port of Oakland. A lot of top grade coffees come through this port – and you know it, New Jersey! So the advantage of being here, cupping
Cupping is a method of tasting coffee by steeping grounds in separate cups for discrete amounts of ground coffee, to reveal good flavors and defects to their fullest.... with all the coffee brokers in the area, picking up coffee from the massive warehouses in the area (with no trucking fees) has made up for the rent, the traffic, and the high percentage of annoying Volvo and Range Rover drivers in the region.
 And this is what the plain entrance to our new place in Emeryville looks like! We thought about dressing it up, but there’s a good chance we will be moving (to another building in the very near vicinity) … and then we’ll be a little less anonymous with the entrance! |  Here’s what it looks like inside at our new place on 64th Street in Emeryville (basically a 40 block town squeezed between North Oakland and Berkeley). It’s a 5000 square foot warehouse with a barrel roof -that’s small by coffee business standards but to us it is huge!
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 The best thing about the new place is we don’t have to break our backs unloading coffee one bag at a time. We have a little forklift now, and although I will admit to bumping into a few things (no, not people … but I did dent our roll-up door!) it is great fun to use. But alas, I sold the Diedrich roaster for a song to our former Ohio employees so they can start a roasting business. I miss it so… but I have a Probat now. |
 This is Tom, me, full name Thompson “I’m older and grumpier than you think” Owen, the guy who writes a lot of what you read on this site, who roast-cups-reviews all the green coffees, and tries to keep up with everything else. If you have a small business, you know that you get the best jobs and the worst. I am both cupperOne who cups, or tastes and evaluates, coffee.: A cupper is a person who performs the somewhat formal analysis of coffee quality, called cupping. See the definition of... and janitor. I fix everything that breaks. Maria handles a lot of the email, along with Allison helping her. |
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mmm… smells like coffee Here’s how I prefer to spend my work day … with the coffee. I cup nearly every day, whether it is to check roasts or (most often) to evaluate incoming samples. Above are some 2 photos from the coffee competitions I attend in the role of a juror. These are from El SalvadorEl Salvador coffee had an undeservingly poor reputation for years, marred mostly by the inability to deliver coffee of high quality in an unstable political climate. Unfortunately, agriculture... Cup of ExcellenceThe Cup of Excellence is a competition held yearly in many coffee-producing countries, designed to highlight the very best coffees from each origin.: The Cup of Excellence (COE)... 2004 (taken by Glen from Hunter Bay Coffee -thanks!) Above left is myself in the green with other jurors and head judge Carlos Rittscher from BrazilBrazil is a coffee giant . As Frank Sinatra sang, "they grow an awful lot of coffee in Brazil".: Brazil is a coffee giant . As Frank Sinatra... (seated). We are checking roasted/ground coffee samples for consistency. Above is myself, judging the wet aromatics by smelling the “crust” of the cups. |
  Francy & Judy, 100% purebred, genuine Oakland pound mutts …   Cerrado Coffee Competition, Brazil, with my friend and Brazil coffee expert Bruno Souza. We had just finished the final cupping round and everyone was a little too caffeinated (Bruno seemingly more than the others). -Tom | |
We started smaller, we’re still small … and what’s wrong with trying to stay small?
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Our old shop in Columbus was beyond microscopic.
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and here’s our logo, painted on the wall just inside the front entrance of our shop in Columbus Ohio, above a shelf containing but a few of our ever-expanding collection of goofy coffee mugs.
Who are we? A tiny shop that started out in 1997 to supply the home roaster with their beans and tools via the internet …and that’s our focus today, tomorrow and eternally… Yes Maria is real, an art curator at the Wexner Center on the campus of Ohio State University. She pays the bills at home too. That’s why she’s sweet. I couldn’t do this without her. We moved from the SF Bay Area to Columbus Ohio so she could take this job and that’s where we started Sweet Maria’s Coffee (And now we are back in the San Francisco area … Emeryville to be exact! See below) Tom, real name Thompson, I’m the coffee guy. I have worked on and off in the coffee business for 15 years, since I was 20. I roasted coffee previously in New Orleans. When I didn’t roast coffee professionally, I roasted it at home. |
| Our little shop was centered around the 12 kilo Diedrich roaster we have. After roasting on open-flame gas roasters, I loved the control I achieve on the Diedrich. It’s a great machine, but now I roast on an L-12 Probat You can’t see the ducting that exits the roaster in the rear. We had to run it up 3 stories outside, which was NOT cheap. Ducting is critical to proper air flow during the roast, so you can’t cut corners. The roaster was mounted on an aluminum floor plate to achieve good leveling (it’s a very old, uneven maple floor), fire safety, and because it looks nice. As we ordered larger and larger quantities of green coffee |
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 Here’s a more recent photo of part of the shop in Columbus before we moved back to California. Thankfully, we had downstairs storage  Green coffee can be stored much longer than roasted coffee: Roasted coffee starts to lose its aromatics in 10 days after roasting. Green coffee can be stored months... and offsite storage too. But we kept all the coffee in the main shop under excellent climate control. Tom is in there somewhere. It was more like something out of Charles Dickens than a modern business. There was no straight path from Point A. to Point B. and no walk is wider than a couple feet. |
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Thompson at the old roaster… the 12k Diedrich,which somehow looks surprisingly small in this image. You should have seen us move it in the store …it’s over 1000 lbs. It also looks like I’m holding an ice cream cone or something, but that’s the gate control on the roaster. Now you know who you’re chatting about Yemeni micro-regional coffees and cupping Guatemalans with …We also run a 1 Lb. Coffee Kinetics air roaster for large samples and any stray 1 lb’ers we want to roast for fun… I have a few old home roasters too. Triumph refers to motorcycles, not the Canadian ’80s band! Do I have a Triumph -no. I can only afford their shop apron. However I love little bikes, vintage Japanese, and a couple exotics (Moto Morini, Ducati). Of 7 bikes, 1 currently runs … but that’s another price you pay for working too much. |
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Some times people think we are operating out of a garage. On the other hand, coffee producers sometimes see the vast amount of information on our site and think we must be huge. I want you to know that we’re not quite either. We have 6 employees, plus Maria and me. All this to focus on what I truly enjoy; cupping, testing, roasting and selling green coffee to home roasters.
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One Response
Tom, … I have bought a small amount of green coffee from you for a few years now… after reading “About Sweet Maria’s Coffee: Our Little Shop”, I now understand the underlying reason as to what keeps you on the “what should I purchase this time” radar outside of the FANTASTIC info and GREAT OFFERINGS. It must be your Chicagoan Bride! From the City of Big Shoulders myself, I do realize the “Quiet Giant” behind the scene motivators we really can be! Especially after you experience our finely honed unparalleled tenacity! Happy Holidays!