Sweet Maria's Home Coffee Roasting

Sweet Maria's Coffee Library: Coffee FAQs - Roasting, Brewing, Everything!

Follow the links below to articles written by Tom & Maria (and a few great pieces by others in the coffee trade); some facts, some opinions, some mine, some not.

New Sweetmaria's Weblog has current comments about newly arriving coffees and other such things. Also check out our separate Roasted Weblog. Yep, we're making logs here.

All articles are provided for informational use only, and you are solely responsible for any bad stuff that may come from any crazed home coffee roasting experiments you undertake...from electric shock to a shockingly great cup of coffee! All for the love of of our favorite brown beverage... You also need to ask to re-publish any of this information! No "scraping" allowed.
Latest Additions:
  • A tribute to Paul Stauder Jr., an important person who helped us get some of our greatest Guatemala coffees.
  • I just returned from Sumatra and Sulawesi; it was a looonnng trip that seemed all too short. I divided the pictures into
    • The Aceh District of Sumatra (actually north of North Sumatra!) which includes Takengon and the areas around Lake Tawar
    • .... and then Sulawesi and Tana Toraja, an amazing, mystical place, where I handily whacked my head crawling through a tunnel in a Toraja traditional burial cave. It still hurts. -Tom
  • Tom returned from a Cupping Competition in Peru with a handful of pictures, and some thoughts on why Peru coffee isn't as respected as it could be ...
  • The shennanigans of the Costa Rica Micro-Millers visit to Sweet Maria's.
  • I have 2 new photosets for recent trips to Ethiopia's Harar region, and from the first-ever Rwanda Cup of Excellence Competition 2008. You can also view both of these on our Coffee Image Gallery site.
  • I did a short page on the First Ever Cupping Class at Sweet Maria's that happened last July.
  • Here is our first attempt and a handy Roasted Postcard, and an explanation of why it kinda failed to be what we had hoped...
  • Many may not know about the problems internal to the SCAA Roaster's Guild, but it came to a head at the 2008 Roaster's Guild Retreat due to gangs from Mille Lac. Read more ...
  • Perhaps the most unusual is Costa Rica RIP Red Honey Coffee. RIP? Roasted In Parchment. This coffee has not been dry-milled, the green bean is still in the outer shell. In perhaps the wackyest moment in Sweet Maria's history, we discovered you can roast coffee in the parchment shell, and it has a very unusual flavor. This is for experts only, since you can't really see the green coffee as it turns brown. See the review and the pictures of the RIP process.
  • The Gesha lots are here and I made a page to help with roasting, using my new Canon 100mm macro lens! Gesha Roast Pictures page
  • I had a very interesting Colombia trip to Huila, Cauca and Narino districts in late May but have been delayed getting the pictures together. You can also see it on the beta images site.
  • I have updated the page about my coffee plant collection, AKA Growing Coffee at Home.
  • I did a lot of cupping in Guatemala City looking for special lots, and then some quick trips to farms in the nearby states. Check out my Guatemala Travelogue. What, another Guatemala trip a few weeks later, with the family (Maria, Ben, my Mom, Myself), and yet another Guatemala Picturelog for 2008.
  • Here's an interesting article on Coffee Bitterness and the role of CGAs (chlorogenic acids).
  • I can't go to the Tolima are of Colombia where our Las Florestales is from ... there's too much FARC Guerilla activity in the area! But our coffee sourcer for this lot, Genevieve Kappler was able to go.
  • A whirlwind tour of Costa Rica Micro Mills in mid February!
  • Espresso Pages- Tom worked on these pages a lot a long time ago - but there was never a link to them that could be easily found. The information is still good- though I am sure he would consider the pages to be still a work in progress (4 years later) .... Maria
  • January 2008: India ... another example of gross camera addiction. I took 1350 images, and narrowed it down to 302 for my India Travelogue. There's also a brief essay.
  • It took a week to sort through them all, but here is my little travelogue for Yemen, just 350 photos or so. You can view it here, or on our new beta site Image Gallery. It's one of the most intriguing coffee origins, and one of the best trips I have taken.
  • Here's a travelogue of my trip to Ethiopia to cup at many exporters in Addis Ababa, and get ready for the new crop coffees.
  • We have posted a .PDF version of the Imbibe Magazine article that featured 3 Sweet Maria's home roasting customers.
  • A collection of single-bean macro images representing different varietals and processes. It's not exhaustive at all, but simply what I had nearby. -Tom
  • An interesting article about coffee chemistry and freshness.
  • A new version of the Sweet Maria's Cupping Log for incoming samples, with links to the older versions.
  • Have you ever noticed how different origin sections of the list expand and contract throughout the year? Of course there is a reason for this - it means that coffee from this region is in season - that the best of the arrivals from the past couple of months have been from this region. So one time of year the South American section will be chock full of coffees- and sometimes not. Generally when we are on the verge of a new season - we will have very few coffees from a region as we wait on the new crop arrivals. A rough production chart that shows how coffee production from around the world is available here - Coffee Production Timetable.
  • A page with some interesting microscopic images of the coffee seed, and the difference between a healthy bean and a defective bean.
  • Since we are finally offering Daterra Yellow Bourbon, I have made a page to describe Daterra Farms, including a snippet of my travelogue and photos of their amazing coffee processing system.
  • Here's some pictures of our empty old place in Emeryville and our new place in hot, upcoming, hi-energy West Oakland!
  • Maria has written a FAQ called How to Choose a Home Roaster - a good summary of the options.
  • I have started, barely, to actually log all the incoming samples that I cup whether we buy them or not. Tom's Cupping Log. This might, over time, give people an idea of the process, and all the coffees we go through to find the really nice lots. But this is just a beginning - I think this page will be impossibly huge after a while. Also, we have a single page listing of all the Moisture Content Readings of our currrent stock
  • I updated the Coffee Production Yearly Timetable to reflect peak crop pickings and shippings, but it is still a very rough guide to the crop cycle.
  • I created a new version of the Roasted Coffee Pictorial Guide with much improved pictures. Click on the small images to see the larger versions, and I have also added a multi-bean photo for each roast stage.
  • Don't ask why, but we keep a page just for obsolete products ... RIP
  • I have created a sort of weblog for our main page to archive happenings there.
  • The TINY JOY archives are at the bottom of the page. The latest issues are in PDF format!

The Home Coffee Roasting Mailing List is a free discussion group for our home roaster customers. A small, focused mailing list can be a great way to exchange ideas and opinions. Please subscribe today!We have an improved list subscription process, a Digest version and an Archive!

New Sweetmaria's Weblog has current comments about newly arriving coffees and other such things. Also check out our separate Roasted Weblog. Yep, we're making logs here. For our weekly roasted coffee we have Sweet Maria's Roasted Weblog. And check out our on-line back issues of our printed Tiny Joy newsletter, which you receive along with your orders from Sweet Maria's.
green coffee copyright sweet marias

Sweet Maria's: about our shop, about us, our history.


Click Here for Sweet Maria's List of
Further Readings and Internet Resources


On-line Back Issues of our newsletter
Tiny Joy
are listed down this page -scroll down or Click Here


 

 

Green Coffee Beans Reviews : We are very proud of our unroasted green coffee selection of 70+ types.
Each is meticulously cup-rated, and selected from particular current crop lots, representing the "best of the best!"


Green Coffee Beans: We are very proud of our unroasted green coffee selection of 70+ types. Each is meticulously cup-rated, and selected from particular current crop lots, representing the "best of the best!"
Jump to the detailed Coffee Cupping Reviews:
This page and most of the articles within are authored by Tom Owen and Sweet Maria's Coffee, Inc. and are not to be reproduced without permission. Please respect authorship and ask!

 
Sweet Maria's Coffee Library Topic Categories

General Home Roasting FAQs
and Tip Sheets

Sweet Maria's Home Roaster Tip Sheets- for both currently available machines and discontinued models
     

Home Roasting Methods and Modifications Sweet Maria's Brewing FAQs and Tip Sheets
 

 

 

Other Roasters, Obsolete Roasters

Roasting and Green Coffee Evaluation Topics:
Articles by Sweet Maria's

 
  • I maintain a sort of nifty Coffee Roaster Image Gallery page- just a jumble of all the roasters I have used, and ones I have come across on trips.

  • Antique Home Roasters: Home roasting has a long history in the United States, when farmers and rural folk had to do most everything for themselves. If you are interested, here are some of the old home coffee roasters we have...

 

Espresso Equipment and Other Coffee Equipment

Roasting and Green Coffee Evaluation Topics:
Great Articles from Other Sources

   

 


Coffee Travels:
Our Coffee Trade, Farm & Cupping Trips

I don't document every trip, and yet this category has grown rather large... hence 2 columns

Coffee Travels:
Our Coffee Trade, Farm & Cupping Trips

(Continued)

 
  • I did a lot of cupping in Guatemala City looking for special lots, and then some quick trips to farms in the nearby states. Check out my Guatemala Travelogue. What, another Guatemala trip a few weeks later, with the family (Maria, Ben, my Mom, Myself), and yet another Guatemala Picturelog for 2008.

  • I can't go to the Tolima area of Colombia where our Las Florestales is from ... there's too much FARC Guerilla activity in the area! But our coffee sourcer for this lot, Genevieve was able to go.

  • A whirlwind tour of Costa Rica Micro Mills in mid February!

  • January 2008: India ... another example of gross camera addiction. I took 1350 images, and narrowed it down to 302 for my India Travelogue. There's also a brief essay.

  • It took a week to sort through them all, but here is my little travelogue for Yemen, just 350 photos or so. You can view it here, or on our new beta site Image Gallery. It's one of the most intriguing coffee origins, and one of the best trips I have taken.

  • Here's a travelogue of my trip to Ethiopia to cup at many exporters in Addis Ababa, and get ready for the new crop coffees.

  • A short but sweet cupping trip to the Dota, Tarrazu and Naranjo regions of Costa Rica.
  • Since we are finally offering Daterra Yellow Bourbon, I have made a page to describe Daterra Farms, including a snippet of my travelogue and photos of their amazing coffee processing system.
  • A real short trip to Motozintla, Mexico, "land of the squirrels," way south in Chiapas state at the border with Guatemala.
  • Here's my totally uninformative picture book of the 2007 Roasters Guild Retreat and a matching, very curmudgeonly comments about the 2007 SCAA Conference in Long Beach
  • Peru, what an amazing place, what a screwy place in terms of coffee. If I seem too harsh, 395 photos in a travelog (and a video to boot) should show the enthusiasm I also have for Peru ... there are 7 pages of thumbnail images, and I hope you find some of it, if not most of it, interesing: Peru Coffee Tour 2006
  • Travelog for Guatemala Cup of Excellence and other Guatemala travels 2006

  • Travelog for El Salvador Cup of Excellence 2006

  • I posted new travelogs for my recent trips, with all my coffee competition cupping scores and the final results. First off was the 2006 Best of Panama competition, then off to to Honduras Cup of Excellence 2006 in San Pedro Sula, and finally the 2006 Nicaragua Cup of Excellence competition in Granada, Nicaragua (a beautiful colonial town). I hope you can tolerate some tongue-in-cheek commentary, with a smattering of useful observations. Lots of pictures, and some of them actually have something to do with coffee! -Tom

  • Back from the Brasil Cafe do Cerrado 2005 event , but off to Bolivia Cup of Excellence (hurricane permitting)[hurricane was not permitting - here are the Bolivia 2005 winners though]. I had time to parse 800 photos and ended up with about 150 that I just had to share. Why do I do this? I don't know. And be warned that a lot of it is not about coffee, strictly speaking. -Tom

 

 

Health Concerns, Caffeine, Decaffeinating

The Ecology of Coffee

Coffee Producing Origins:
Interesting Articles from Other Sources
   

 

The Odds and Ends!

Coffee Cutivation and Technical Aspects.

 

 

 
  • I tried to put together a pictorial about how I grow coffee plants at home. This is dated now, and I have over 60 plants with at least 25 unique cultivars represented, including robusta types, liberica, excelsa and other non-arabica coffees.

  • A friend sent me a couple interesting photos from India, which I turned into a page about Exotic Coffee Cultivars

  • My review of El Salvador 2004 Cup of Excellence includes a visit to the ProCafe Experimental Coffee Farm with lots of Cultivar Pictures!

  • Coffee vs. Wine, the debate goes on. This was the article I prepared for the March Tiny Joy, before editing it

  • How about Home Processing Coffee? Well, you need coffee cherry to do that. I brought back some extra from Costa Rica so I gave home wet-processing a try

  • I had made a page that concerns Buying Bags of Coffee, essentially some insights about dealing with brokers and why I feel like home roasters and startup roasters should be cautioned away from doing so. Might sound self-serving, but there's other reasons for this position... Nice pictures too!

The Coffee Trade:
Sweet Maria's Other Pictorials
   
 
  • An updated look at Organic and Fair Trade coffee in Ethiopia, as of 2004

  • Coffee from the Island of Saint Helena is something we get when it is available and when it is good. But the crop is very limited, and there have been problems with reliability lately. Whether we will have it again is a unsure...

  • Our coffee shipment on the way from the Isle of St. Helena. Here's some wonderful pictures!

  • It's the middle of the busy season but it's also time for the Brazil Coffee Auction! I posted a list of the winning coffees and a few comments and our lot, the Boa Vista (due in March)

  • Here's some comments and pictures from a recent cupping of India Coffees with Ken Davids, and a tour of Mr. Espresso's wood-fired roasters.

  • I had a nice visit over at Intelligentsia in Chicago, a roasting company I hold in high regard...

  • We have a special page dedicated to our winning lot of 2002 Brazil Cup of Excellence Auction Lot, Fazenda Boa Vista

 

Our Coffee Cupping Reviews have tons of information as do the archive of reviews...

Central America: Costa Rica | Guatemala | Honduras | Mexico | Nicaragua | Panama | El Salvador
South America: Bolivia | Brazil | Colombia | Peru
Africa/Arabia: Burundi | Congo | Ethiopia | Kenya | Tanzania | Uganda | Zambia | Zimbabwe | Yemen
Indonesia/Asia: Bali | India | Java | Papua New Guinea | Sumatra | Sulawesi | Timor
Islands/Blends/Others: Hawaii | Puerto Rico | Jamaica | Dominican | Chicory | Sweet Maria's Blends
Decafs: Swiss Water Process, Natural Decafs, MC Decafs, C0-2 Decafs
Robustas: India | Uganda Archives: A - F | G - K | L - P | R - S | T - Z | Pre-2000

Tiny Joy, our newsletter, in plain text web format (and later in .pdf)

(This is not fancy, just the articles really, so everyone can have access to them. It is not a complete list, our '97 and most of '98 are missing, as are a few from '00.
The layouts get a bit messed up when they are converted from print to web, but it is all there...)
visitors to this page since January 2005

The Coffee Library

 

 

Sweet Maria's
Coffee Roasting
Tip Sheets
Sweet Maria's
Coffee Brewing
Tip Sheets
Jump to:
  Further Reading  The Complete Sweet Maria's Coffee Library Page
- Coffee Travel Pictorials, New Product Reviews, Roasting Pictorials, Etc!
Interesting Coffee and Coffee Roasting Web Sites
- Links to Home Roasting Web Sites, Coffee Industry Sites, Great Coffee Books, Etc!
Coffee Book Recommendations
Sweet Maria's
Coffee Cupping
Reviews
South America: Bolivia | Brazil | Colombia | Ecuador | Peru
Indonesia/Asia: Bali | India | Java | Papua New Guinea | Sumatra | Sulawesi | Timor
 
This page is authored by Tom Owen and Sweet Maria's Coffee, Inc. and is not to be copied or reproduced without permission.
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