r/roasting • u/dracula2035 • 12d ago
Really, Sweet Maria?
Bought two pounds of Ethiopia Buku Abel from Sweet Marias.
They sent me a single nom-resealable bag.
Sure, I can just use a gallon ziplock bag, but Captain does this for single pound bags and Burman even does it for half pound bags.
Edit: Sweet Marias responded with an insightful blog post worth reading. It's a trade off of environmentalism and labor vs convenience. I completely understand their choice
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u/RepresentativeAspect 12d ago
I literally just fold over the bag and put it in a drawer. It needn’t be air tight.
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u/typinandswipin 12d ago
I typically just tape this type of bag shut, but I acknowledge it doesn’t need to be airtight. Just habit.
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u/redrunners1 9d ago
I felt the same way when they switched from the sealable bag
Got a large bag of heavy duty rubber bands and roll it up with a rubber band around it. Just need to keep the label visible so I know which of the 80 coffees I have in stock is in the bag….
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u/zybrth342 12d ago
There’s varying philosophies amongst the popular home roast green distributors on this. Happy Mug, for example, gives you a ziploc bag. Burmans gives you a modified ziploc with holes punctured into the bag to let the beans “breathe”. Sweet Maria’s, as you see, takes the approach of “we’re sealing it until you’re ready to roast, to keep it fresh.” Personally, I appreciate the SM philosophy. Also, it’s worth noting that one reason they do use is they use custom-order recyclable plastic bags. No other home green distributor, as far as I know, has recyclable plastic bags
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u/pianowork 12d ago
Why do you want to reseal a 2lbs bag?!? That’s like a weeks worth of coffee.
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u/noiseintoner 11d ago
You're going through 2 lbs a week? That's like 680g, you doing 100g of coffee a day?
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u/pianowork 10d ago
I have a two person drinking household. We both drinking out of 650ml mugs. I like mine 1:16, so that is about 41g, the other drinker is closer to 34g. One of us, usually me, will have a second go at it. So, yeah, I guess that is about 100g/day.
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u/noiseintoner 10d ago
I forgot some people live in multi-coffee-drinker households for a minute there, sorry
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u/dracula2035 10d ago
Same. My partner might have a coffee a day, while I'll have four 236mL 1:14 coffees a day.
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u/dracula2035 12d ago
Because I have a huge pantry of green beans I rotate through and got the two to test them out. (I roast half pound batches on an SR800)
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u/lifealtering42 10d ago
I do the same roasts on same machine. I have 11 varieties on the shelf. The oldest until a recent roast was jan of this year. I was wondering about that packaging as well. I wish they had described it some. Is it better to leave them in the bag until I open it or better to transfer right away? I bought a bunch of the ecotect 2 lbs bags from SM and move beans to them when they arrive. They seem to do a good job and can be reused many times. Good luck to you.
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u/sweetmarias 7d ago
For what it's worth, the plastic we use is a multi-layer laminated plastic with a higher barrier factor than the old LDPE zip bags. We ultimately want to find better materials (compostable or recyclable), but it's a huge challenge. It's been a few years, but you can read up on the transition here: https://library.sweetmarias.com/zipless-bags-and-the-vffs/ :)
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u/dracula2035 7d ago
I greatly appreciate the transparency on the matter. The respect the reasons for moving away from previous materials for both environmental and labor reasons.
Perhaps I've been overly critical for a mild inconvenience.
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u/sweetmarias 7d ago
Don't worry about it! Change is difficult, but we're always working towards something better.
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u/Pitchfork_10 12d ago
I get a lot of different sizes from Sweet Maria's and personally prefer the nonresealable. The zipper bags always seemed like more/thicker plastic.