Few coffee roasters or importers store all their stock of green coffee. That includes Sweet Maria’s
Ever wonder where all that Sweet Maria’s coffee comes from? Where do we get it all from?
Well from coffee-producing origins of course! And most of our coffee comes through our direct buying relationships we have built in those countries, (and a minority of bags comes from importer relationships too).
But between the country that exports coffee and our warehouse, we use a large facility in Oakland called The Annex that specializes in storing and distributing coffee to companies like ours. In fact, nearly every importer and large coffee roasterA machine for roasting coffee. Or the person operating it! The basic requirements for a coffee roaster are a heating element that gets suitably hot and a mechanism... in this region uses The Annex.
How we handle our coffee and move through batches is really important to us, and a lot of work. Just tracking lots is critical to maintain quality and freshness, as well as match the work flow of what our warehouse crew can handle
Our system helps minimize moving bags by hand, although there is plenty of that. We built our new warehouse with a truck-high standard loading dock so we can use a forklift to drive into the High Cube container bringing our coffee each week.
We also don’t use standard pallets, but a large sturdy type called “bean boards” in the coffee trade. These can be used over and over, and hold 20+ bags rather than 10 on a standard pallet.
While all coffee still comes in an outer jute bag, we use an inner liner to protect our coffee, a high barrier specialized bag made by Ecotact or GrainproA multi-layer plastic bag with a gas barrier. The bags have been shown to extend the flavor life of the coffee significantly over storage in jute or burlap.... We do this on 100% of our coffee to ensure quality and freshness at our green coffee
Green coffee refers to the processed seed of the coffee tree fruit. Coffee is a flowering shrub that produces fruit. The seeds of the fruit are processed, roasted,... warehouse.
Dan made this quick video before heading back to Seattle. This video documents how we receive our shipment from the Annex, every Thursday!
