PODCAST · education
Sweet Maria's Coffee
by Thompson Owen / Sweet Maria's Coffee
Our audio recordings about coffee from West Oakland, CA and beyond, mostly from Thompson Owen.
Episodes
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Migoti, Burundi: A conversation with Dan Brose
On my visit to Burundi this year, I sat with Dan Brose of Migoti Coffee. Dan and his partner Poncien built this station some years ago, and it all didn't go exactly as planned. With some bumps along the way, this main station in Mutambu district is becoming a hub, with a new station starting in...
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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,...
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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…
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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....
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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...
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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...
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Ethiopia 4 - Yirga Alem - Conflict - Culture
The Aregash Lodge in Yirg Alem is an oasis! I always look forward to staying here on the way to the southern coffee growing areas of Yirga Cheffe, Kochore, Gedeb, and Shakiso. It's owned by Gregorg and his family, since 2003. But last year it was attacked by a local mob and one of the main...
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Ethiopia 3 - Coffee, Photography, Power
I really was on the fence about uploading this episode. One the one hand, this is stuff I have already said, about photography and coffee travel, about marketing, about representation. It feels like I am just hung up on this. Does anyone care? On the other hand, the second part of this is about a...
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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...
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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...
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Five Minute Answers to Your Coffee Questions Ep. 2
Tom takes on a few questions submitted by Sweet Maria's customers.
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Five Minute Answers to Your Coffee Questions
Tom takes on a few questions submitted by Sweet Maria's customers.
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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.
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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. Watch the video to see the slide presentation:...
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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...
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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…
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Burundi Conversation with Alistair Sequeira - Part 2
Thompson and Alistair Sequeira talk about coffee and lotsa other stuff in this 2017 conversation in rural Mwakiro, Burundi. The conversation starts off with Alistair explaining how he transitioned his career from mechanical engineering to the coffee industry. Just so you know, there are more than…
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Burundi Conversation with Alistair Sequeira - Part 1
Thompson and Alistair Sequeira talk about coffee and lotsa other stuff in this 2017 conversation in rural Mwakiro, Burundi. Alistair lives with his family in Bujumbura, the capital, and has helped us find good Burundi coffees for several years. He was director of a large coffee export office…
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Kenya Coffee PART 2: Growing, Trading and Marketing
Part 2 of 2 A while back we had Mary Maina Manyeki visit us in Oakland, and had a great conversation about her experiences as a Kenya coffee farmer. This transitioned into a more general conversation with Wycliffe, a trader and agronomist from Kenyacof, and Kat, a trader from Sucafina USA, about...
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Kenya Coffee PART 1: Growing, Trading and Marketing
Part 1 of 2 A while back we had Mary Maina Manyeki visit us in Oakland, and had a great conversation about her experiences as a Kenya coffee farmer. This transitioned into a more general conversation with Wycliffe, a trader and agronomist from Kenyacof, and Kat, a trader from Sucafina USA, about...
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Coffee and Microorganisms: Los Palomos Colombia
Here is the audio from a video that Tom shot on a trip to Colombia. "This is a long form talk with Leo and Jenni Henao at the farm in Urrao Antioquia, Colombia. Maybe of interest to farmers and gardeners more than coffee. Leo and I are friends and I'm trying to get him to laugh in this video. But...
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Indonesian Coffee with Coffee Trader, David Shewmaker
This starts with music buy the Indo pop group The Steps, and ends with a long 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...
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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.…
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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...
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Coffee Cultivation in Colombia PART 2
PART 2. This isn't really a podcast. It's a recorded Skype conversation. The quality is pretty low. But if you are dying to know details of the issues facing coffee farmers in Colombia, there's some nuggets of wisdom in here (if you can hear them over the car alarm in the background, ha ha)....
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Coffee Cultivation in Colombia PART 1
PART 1. This isn't really a podcast. It's a recorded Skype conversation. The quality is pretty low. But if you are dying to know details of the issues facing coffee farmers in Colombia, there's some nuggets of wisdom in here (if you can hear them over the car alarm in the background, ha ha)....
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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…
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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.
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The Burundi Coffee System
Tom describes the subjects of this podcast as "obscure details" but it's actually pretty interesting. We hope you enjoy his reflections on Burundi's coffee industry, production systems, colonial history, co-ops and other organizations.
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Processing Coffee at Gitesi Rwanda
During a trip to Rwanda, Tom documented his visit to the Gitesi processing station. This is where we get a lot of our Rwandan coffee from. The son of the mill's owner answers a lot of questions about the drying and processing of the coffee that is produced there. He also talks a bit about their...
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Cupping and Talking About The Taste Lexicon of Coffee
Tom and Chris Schooley cup coffee in Chris's kitchen and talk about the information that Tom brought back from his trip to Kansas State University where he met with a group of sensory analysis professionals. Please excuse the slurping/spitting noises that all coffee cuppers make.. The kids…
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Tasting and Coffee Lexicons
We describe coffee as tasting like so many other things, fruits, sugars, caramels, candies, spices ... but the core coffee flavors are much more challenging to elucidate. I have come up with a term "coffee identity" akin to the basic taste identifying markers from other food and beverage flavor...
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Coffee Rust Fungus and Organic Production in Honduras
I made this recording in January this year, and thought I would share it as a new podcast because it addresses the effect of Roya (Coffee Leaf Rust) and the current crop. It's not a new problem, but is proportionally more important because it is so widespread now in Central America. It affects…
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Local Coffee Price and Competition
For some this podcast may seem esoteric, but I wanted to take on ideas about sourcing coffee and the rather simplistic ideas, overt and implied, in the way "direct trade" coffee is marketed by coffee roasters. There isn't one approach to working with farmers and buying quality coffee, even within...
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Hot Air Popcorn Popper Roasting
On New Year's Day 2014, Tom was out of roasted coffee and decided to solve the problem with his hot air popcorn popper.
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Pity Needs a new Pair of Shoes
When in Kenya, and while getting used to the idea of podcasting, Tom recorded some fun conversations.
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Ethiopian Amharic Pronunciation
The Amharic language in Ethiopia is difficult for any Westerner to grasp. In this podcast, Tom gets some informal lessons from some folks during one of his trips.
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Coffee Buying and Travel
Our first podcast takes place as Tom grinds and brews a cup of coffee in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He clears up a few misconceptions that people have about what happens after he steps off airplanes in origin countries. Learn about what goes into purchasing the coffee that ends up in your home…
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Sweet Maria's Coffee have?
Sweet Maria's Coffee currently has 43 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Sweet Maria's Coffee about?
Our audio recordings about coffee from West Oakland, CA and beyond, mostly from Thompson Owen.
How often does Sweet Maria's Coffee release new episodes?
Sweet Maria's Coffee has 43 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Sweet Maria's Coffee?
You can listen to Sweet Maria's Coffee on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Sweet Maria's Coffee?
Sweet Maria's Coffee is created and hosted by Thompson Owen / Sweet Maria's Coffee.
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