Sweet Maria's Coffee

Our audio recordings about coffee from West Oakland, CA and beyond, mostly from Thompson Owen.

Tanzania - A Morning in Moshi 07/10/2023

Tanzania - A Morning in Moshi This recording is a 28 minute unedited recording of a morning in Moshi, Tanzania May 25 2023. It’s the kind of “waking up” recordings I often do when traveling, both as personal note taking, but sometimes the material I turn into podcasts. This time, I thought I would also upload it to youtube, with images and video clips. So on youtube there’s some added visual information, but it’s not synced to the recording. Images and vocal do not match. But of course they are all from the same trip to Tanzania. Here is the . /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/27423738

Tourism-Travel-Coffee (Part 2) 05/03/2023

Tourism-Travel-Coffee (Part 2) This is the second part of of a podcast recording, focusing on tourism coffee and coffee marketing. I read from the article Tourism: Globalization and the Commodification of Culture about Disneyfication, and McDonaldization, read a text from a Starbucks bag about coffee travel adventures through an Indiana Jones / colonial adventurer lens, listen to Dangerous Grounds tv show promo reel that infuses coffee travel with xenophobia, and connect it to the current way roasters talk about coffee buying more as a social mission than something they do so they have a product to sell. The latest approach includes incredible claims like “Kevin [coffee buyer] discovered that small scale poor farmers produced some of the most complex and incredible coffees in the world, yet they had no experience of what was happening to their work thousands of miles away or its tremendous value and appreciation by specialty coffee drinkers.” Poor coffee farmers! Here comes Kevin to save you! So what’s the answer? I don’t have one but it would hurt to kick it down a notch, and just try to learn when you travel. Would it? /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/26728824

Tourism-Travel-Coffee (Part 1) 05/03/2023

Tourism-Travel-Coffee (Part 1) I've been a little obsessed lately with reading about tourism and travel narritives, and seeing how these line up with my work as a coffee buyer. What I find is that ideas that interest me in coffee are not really discussed in the coffee trade, and I am not sure who is interested in these things. Trigger warning: if the term "culture studies" or "the other" set you off, don't listen to this podcast. (joke, but not really I guess). This first episode doesnt really get into things much. Hopefully you can listen to part 2 as well. -T /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/26728572

Kenya Coffee Cupping 03/26/2023

Kenya Coffee Cupping It’s been nearly 4 years since visiting Kenya, and I am excited to be back. When I travel for coffee I tend to make audio recordings over morning coffee, and sometimes I edit these into podcasts later. Kenya trips that focus on cupping can be intense. It’s a marathon of tasting, and very intense coffee at that. I talk a bit about the approach I think Kenya requires in terms of coffee sourcing, and later about the grades of Kenya coffee outside of specialty types. Traveling often leads me to thoughts about the history of coffee production and trade, and with Kenya the specific history of colonialism here. And I end with a song! A 45 single I found in a stack near Nairobi by Fadhili William & The Black Shadows, Hakuna Mwingine. And that’s a summary of this 30 minute podcast recorded mostly in Kenya, in February 2023. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/26346711

Ethiopia 5 - Shakiso - Guji Coffee & Very Loud Prayers 01/08/2023

Ethiopia 5 - Shakiso - Guji Coffee & Very Loud Prayers It’s Sunday morning in Shakiso town but it’s not peaceful and quiet by any definition. I am talking about coffee in the area, but I’m competing against the decibels of the Orthodox church and their loudspeaker. I am not sure if this is very “listenable”. It sounds ok to me, but I am used to these morning prayers and just tune them out. It might not be so easy in a recording. Anyway, it’s here for you to listen to … or not! /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/25534590

Ethiopia 2 - Jimma, Coffee Travel and Coffee Marketing 01/04/2023

Ethiopia 2 - Jimma, Coffee Travel and Coffee Marketing I am in the larger town of Jimma, I think the euphoria of returning to the dirt roads of Ethiopia wore off a bit. It was probably all the dust. Feeling a bit drained, but still happy to be back in Ethiopia, I reflect a bit on coffee travel. I have always had a problematic relationship with using coffee travel to sell coffee, to create marketing material. But in the end I feel coffee can be a pretty straightforward product, and that’s not bad at all. I was going to skip including this one honestly, but decided to keep it in the end. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/25500162

Ethiopia 1 - Agaro: The Losing Battle of Coops vs. Private Exporters 01/04/2023

Ethiopia 1 - Agaro: The Losing Battle of Coops vs. Private Exporters I am in Agaro town in the Western coffee region near Jimma and Limmu. It feels like I am 70% in Ethiopia and 30% still back in Oakland. Despite jet lag, I talk about what I have learned so far about the competition for coffee cherry, and how the cooperatives are at a disadvantage when well-funded exporters open up coffee stations in the area. It’s not all bad. Coffee farmers are selling cherry at high prices, which helps offset local inflation. I also added on some thoughts about Covid in Ethiopia and some interesting comments I heard from my Ethiopian. This is part 1 of a series of recordings I made over morning coffee nearly every day on my December trip. They aren't perfect. They are monologues. They are a little embarrassing. But there are some good raw ideas in here, perhaps. I have 8-9 episodes if I can bear to post them all! It's a bit much. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/25499430

Rwanda – Getting Back to Coffeelands 06/27/2022

Rwanda – Getting Back to Coffeelands Tom posted a set of photos and an article in our coffee library. This is the audio version of that article, read by Tom. It's an insight into the narrative created by coffee photography and how things are or aren't always as they seem. www.sweetmarias.com /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/23557727

Colombia Cupping & Conversation Part 2 10/13/2021

Colombia Cupping & Conversation Part 2 Part 2 of 2. Dan and Tom sat down with Pedro and Leo from Medellin, Colombia. They are the folks we work with when we source our coffee from there. They tasted four Colombian coffees that are en route to Sweet Maria's. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/20798183

Colombia Cupping & Conversation Part 1 10/13/2021

Colombia Cupping & Conversation Part 1 Dan and Tom sat down with Pedro and Leo from Medellin, Colombia. They are the folks we work with when we source our coffee from there. They tasted four Colombian coffees that are en route to Sweet Maria's. This is part 1. Check out part 2 for more great conversation and interesting details. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/20798132

Colombia Cupping & Conversation Part 1 10/13/2021

Discussing Decaf with Swiss Water's Mike Strumpf 07/16/2021

Discussing Decaf with Swiss Water's Mike Strumpf Dan and Tom sit down with Mike Strumpf from Swiss Water Decaf. Swiss Water's non-chemical process is one of the main reasons our decafs taste so great. Ever wonder how caffeine is removed? Listen in and find out. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/19835630

Five Minute Answers to Your Coffee Questions Ep. 2 11/25/2020

Five Minute Answers to Your Coffee Questions Ep. 2 You wanted to know. We wanted to tell you. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/16956068

Five Minute Answers to Your Coffee Questions 10/09/2020

Five Minute Answers to Your Coffee Questions You wanted to know. We wanted to tell you. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/16344107

Personal Brewing Routines & The Weirdness of Coffee Culture 08/11/2020

Personal Brewing Routines & The Weirdness of Coffee Culture Tom, Dan and Ryan use a new exquisite corpse type format to share their opinions on the state of coffee culture and their personal coffee drinking habits. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/15562115

Burundi & Global Coffee Market Issues 07/31/2019

Burundi & Global Coffee Market Issues This is a recording from a presentation we hosted at our warehouse in June 2019. Tom had recently returned from a trip to Africa and wanted to share his thoughts on the global coffee market and small holder farmers in Burundi. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/10727558

Kafa in the Morning, Ethiopia 01/08/2019

Kafa in the Morning, Ethiopia Okay, this is a "podcast" with zero edits, just a voice recording basically. It's a December early morning in the origin of coffee origins, which is Kafa, Ethiopia, near the town of Bonga. I talk slow as molasses about various experiences and thoughts from the last couple weeks in Ethiopia. Maybe this is super boring. It's not like I am really into these monologues, but when I am jetlagged and inspired (odd combination), my resistance to rambling on is particularly low. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/8171165

Talking With Jonas About Aillio and The Bullet R1 Roaster 09/10/2018

Talking With Jonas About Aillio and The Bullet R1 Roaster The inventor or the Bullet R1 coffee roaster, Jonas Lillie visited Sweet Maria's for our Bullet meet up event. He was also in town to show Tom and Julio some details about the internals of these awesome machines. One day, we hit the record button during a conversation/repair session in hopes of it turning into an informative podcast episode and Youtube video. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/7020677

Burundi Conversation with Alistair Sequeira - Part 2 07/23/2018

Burundi Conversation with Alistair Sequeira - Part 2 Part 2 of 2 - Thompson and Alistair Sequeira talk about coffee and lotsa other stuff. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/6835554

Burundi Conversation with Alistair Sequeira - Part 1 07/16/2018

Burundi Conversation with Alistair Sequeira - Part 1 Part 1 of talk about the coffee supply chain among other topics /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/6817494

Kenya Coffee PART 2: Growing, Trading and Marketing 04/03/2018

Kenya Coffee PART 2: Growing, Trading and Marketing Tom chats with Kenya coffee experts about the Kenyan coffee trade (Part 2 of 2) /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/6436745

Kenya Coffee PART 1: Growing, Trading and Marketing 04/03/2018

Kenya Coffee PART 1: Growing, Trading and Marketing Tom chats with Kenya coffee experts about the Kenyan coffee trade (Part 1 of 2) /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/6436729

Coffee and Microorganisms: Los Palomos Colombia 09/06/2017

Coffee and Microorganisms: Los Palomos Colombia Here is the audio from a video that Tom shot on a trip to Colombia. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/5713971

Indonesian Coffee with Coffee Trader, David Shewmaker 08/28/2017

Indonesian Coffee with Coffee Trader, David Shewmaker An informative conversation with Daniel Shewmaker of MTC coffee traders, who sources coffee in Indonesia. He also grew up in Sulawesi and speaks Bahasa! While in Timor and Flores we were having good conversations about Indonesia coffee processing and quality, and the way it relates (or doesn't) to current coffee trade trends. -Tom /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/5684211

A conversation with John Karuru - Kenyan Agronomist 07/08/2016

A conversation with John Karuru - Kenyan Agronomist John Karuru is a Kenyan agronomist who works in Rwanda, and a person of wide-ranging knowledge. If you want to know how to escape a charging hippo, John's your man. In fact our conversation veers away from coffee quickly, but John's stories about growing up in East Africa are so entertaining. Where do they smoke coffee leaves? John knows. Hope you enjoy this one ... -Thompson /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/4502350

Kenya Coffee with Mette-Marie Hansen 02/03/2016

Kenya Coffee with Mette-Marie Hansen During his trip to Nairobi in Dec. of 2015, Tom had this casual conversation with Mette-Marie "Mia" Hansen about the confusing Kenyan coffee world and what it's like being a woman in this financial end of the coffee trade. Mia works for C. Dorman Coffee Exporters as a buyer and trader that also buys coffee from Tanzania, Rwanda and Ethiopa. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/4124167

Coffee Cultivation in Colombia PART 2 11/12/2015

Coffee Cultivation in Colombia PART 2 A convo with Leonardo Henao about issues facing Colombian farmers. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/3944077

Coffee Cultivation in Colombia PART 1 11/12/2015

Coffee Cultivation in Colombia PART 1 A convo with Lenardo Henao about issues facing Colombian farmers. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/3944061

Morning Sounds from my Coffee Travels 08/04/2015

Morning Sounds from my Coffee Travels For many years I have recorded the ambient sounds I awake to while traveling in coffee-producing countries. Without many podcast ideas lately, and not really wanting to hear myself talk much, I thought these might be interesting to hear as ambient sound. But I found I had to add a voice-over track to explain where I was, and what was happening at the time. Oh well, here it is... /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/3715809

Ferment in Colombia with Leo 11/04/2014

Ferment in Colombia with Leo Thompson talks with Leonardo Henao about breaking the rules on coffee fermentation, and how a focus on microorganisms might alter the conceptual framework of what processing and fermentation are to coffee flavors. /episode/index/show/sweetmarias/id/3161097

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