Specialty Coffee San Diego: Inside Talitha's Roastery and Its Q Graders
If you've ever picked up a bag of Talitha Coffee at one of our San Diego cafes or online, there's a good chance you didn't get to see where those roasted beans actually came from.
Every bag we sell, whether it is at Liberty Public Market, Bankers Hill, Clairemont, online, or through a wholesale partner, starts at the same address in Barrio Logan. That is our roastery, and it is the closest Talitha Coffee has to a headquarters.
Sure, it's not a fourth café. There is no espresso bar, no seating, and no menu on the wall. But even still, what happens inside is the reason the coffee in your cup tastes the way it does.
A Local San Diego Production Facility, Not a Café
Talitha's roastery was established in 2022, after founders Jenny and Robert Barber relocated the company from Los Angeles to San Diego.
As Talitha grew, Barrio Logan became the company's central roasting and production headquarters, the place where every coffee is roasted, quality tested, packaged and prepared before it ever even reaches a café, a wholesale account, or a customer's front door.
Talitha's 'Q' Graders Decide What Makes the Cut
Before any coffee makes it into a Talitha bag, it has to pass through our two licensed “Q Graders”. What’s a Q Grader? We employ certified coffee tasters who are trained to score coffee using a mathematical standard, rather than a matter of opinion.
The Q Grader certification runs over six days and includes nine exams, covering cupping, triangulation, olfactory tests, and both green and roasted coffee grading. Graders must recertify every three years to keep the title.
Here’s why we bother: we thrive in making “specialty coffee”. Specialty coffee is defined as coffee scoring 80 points or above on a 100-point cupping scale, judged on aroma, flavor, acidity and balance. Every coffee we consider goes through sample roasting and cupping against that scale before it is approved.
Once approved, each coffee gets a roast profile built to highlight what makes that origin distinct, then another round of quality control before packaging and shipping.
With two Q Graders on staff, that means “quality” isn’t just meaningless marketing copy. If a coffee does not clear the bar, it does not make it into a Talitha bag.
Freshness on Schedule
A common question from serious coffee drinkers: how fresh is what I’m buying from the online shop?
As demand for Talitha has grown, the roastery has expanded its cold brew production and staff, allowing for roasting seven days a week. We’ve matched the demand to the production, which means we don’t have bags just sitting around in warehouses for months.
Our coffee also rotates on an ongoing schedule, and batches pass quality control before packaging. What is available for pickup reflects what was actually roasted most recently.
Also, it’s worth knowing that just like with in-store Talitha coffee, all coffee sourcing starts with sustainability and ethical farming.
Barrio Logan Is Home
Barrio Logan is a historic, community-rooted San Diego neighborhood that has held onto its identity, even as bigger development and bigger business have pushed in, in more recent years. But we have absolutely always loved Barrio Logan, as it was our original choice to brew. We did not land here by accident.
As larger, more corporate coffee operations move into San Diego, Talitha has stayed committed to a hands-on, small-batch approach, rather than treating scale as the only measure of success.
The Talitha roastery is the part of Talitha Coffee most customers never see, but it’s where everything else starts, graded by two Q Graders, and kept fresh for our cafés, subscription boxes, and wholesale orders.
