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 Kimono and another planned for next year. But what I really appreciate is Dan’s deep experience in Burundi, and how his background in chemical engineering and other work informs the Migoti approach to cof...
Aug 11, 2024•42 min•Season 2024Ep. 1
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 Tanz...
Jul 10, 2023•27 min•Season 2023Ep. 5
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...
May 03, 2023•39 min•Season 2023Ep. 4
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 ...
May 03, 2023•30 min•Season 2023Ep. 3
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 thou...
Mar 26, 2023•30 min•Season 2023Ep. 6
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!
Jan 08, 2023•11 min•Season 2023Ep. 2
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 honestl...
Jan 04, 2023•9 min•Season 2022Ep. 2
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 Ethiop...
Jan 04, 2023•12 min•Season 2022Ep. 1
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
Jun 27, 2022•13 min•Season 5Ep. 1
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.
Oct 13, 2021•20 min•Season 4Ep. 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. This is part 1. Check out part 2 for more great conversation and interesting details.
Oct 13, 2021•47 min•Season 4Ep. 2
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.
Jul 16, 2021•37 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Tom takes on a few questions submitted by Sweet Maria's customers.
Nov 25, 2020•33 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Tom takes on a few questions submitted by Sweet Maria's customers.
Oct 09, 2020•27 min•Season 3Ep. 6
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.
Aug 11, 2020•24 min•Season 3Ep. 5
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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWWkAVSxLvg
Jul 31, 2019•1 hr 8 min•Season 3Ep. 4
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.
Jan 08, 2019•32 min•Season 3Ep. 3
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.
Sep 10, 2018•1 hr 32 min•Season 3Ep. 4
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 a few F-bombs dropped during this conversation! Alistair lives with his family in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi and has helped us find good Burundi coffees for several years. He was director of a la...
Jul 23, 2018•47 min
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 there before heading off to do his own thing in the coffee sector. The conversation starts off with Alistair talking about growing up in Kenya and the bias he found in UK boarding schools. Just so you know, ...
Jul 16, 2018•32 min
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 the coffee market in Kenya. I split that generally into Part 1 and Part 2 as the conversation was quite long! This is (again) just a lo-fi recording of a conversation about coffee, but there are many goo...
Apr 03, 2018•24 min•Season 3Ep. 1
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 the coffee market in Kenya. I split that generally into Part 1 and Part 2 as the conversation was quite long! This is (again) just a lo-fi recording of a conversation about coffee, but there are many goo...
Apr 03, 2018•33 min•Season 3Ep. 2
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 the topic and his use of micro-organisms in composting is very interesting!" -Tom CLICK HERE to watch the video.
Sep 06, 2017•37 min•Season 2Ep. 7
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 Indonesia coffee processing and quality, and the way it relates (or doesn't) to current coffee trade trends. So I wanted to capture some of that in a recording. Sadly, its probably the worst recording I hav...
Aug 28, 2017•39 min•Season 2Ep. 6
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
Jul 08, 2016•45 min•Season 2Ep. 5
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.
Feb 03, 2016•51 min•Season 2Ep. 4
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). Leonardo Henao occupies a unique position to discuss Colombian coffee. He has training in agronomy and business, works with many small farmers around the country to source and export their coffee, is a confi...
Nov 12, 2015•35 min•Season 2Ep. 3
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). Leonardo Henao occupies a unique position to discuss Colombian coffee. He has training in agronomy and business, works with many small farmers around the country to source and export their coffee, is a confi...
Nov 12, 2015•24 min•Season 2Ep. 2
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... -Tom
Aug 04, 2015•18 min•Season 2Ep. 1
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.
Nov 04, 2014•26 min•Season 1Ep. 11
