Single-origin coffee, logged by curve on the Probat and shipped within days of the roast. Nothing sits on a shelf. Nothing goes past a Full City.
We buy green coffee by the origin, roast it in small batches to a logged temperature curve, and get it to you before it has time to go flat.
Sam Okafor started Tidewater in 2014 with one drum roaster and a wall of tide charts. The charts are still there. So is the drum.
Six lots on rotation, each roasted to order after you buy. Notes are ours from the table, not the importer's sheet.
We roast by curve, not by clock. Temperature against time, logged for every batch, so the light roasts stay bright and nothing tips into ash.
Green beans hit the hot drum near 196°C. The temperature dives, then finds its turning point around 88°C.
Heat climbs back through the drying and browning phases. This is where the sugars set and the aromatics build.
Around 196°C the beans crack audibly. From here we count development time in seconds, not minutes.
Light lots drop moments after the crack. Nothing here is taken past a Full City. Then it cools and gets bagged.
Sam Okafor learned to roast on borrowed time at other people's machines before buying a 12-kilo Probat and a lease on Custom House Wharf. Everything Tidewater ships still comes off that one drum.
The roastery sits on the working waterfront, jute bags stacked by origin, a cupping table by the window, and the tide charts Sam has kept on the wall since the first week. When the fog rolls in off the harbor, you can smell the roast two docks down.
Pick a roast or let us rotate the table for you. We roast the morning it ships, so it lands within days. Change it, pause it, or cancel anytime, no phone call required.
“The Yirgacheffe smells like a flower shop and tastes like tea. Best light roast on the East Coast.”Nell D. · Portland
“Roasted Tuesday, on my doorstep Thursday. That's the whole game.”Marcus V. · subscriber
Pour-overs, espresso off the Harbor Fog blend, and whatever came off the drum that morning. Find us on the water side of Custom House Wharf.