Roaster Highlight: Marlette's Coffee Company w/ Founder Marlette Vater

Marlette Vater is the founder and head roaster of Marlette's Coffee Company, a small-batch specialty roastery tucked near Lake Hodges in North County San Diego. Operating out of a fully permitted Cottage Food Class B setup, everything is roast-to-order: you choose your roast level, and your coffee is batch roasted specifically for you. Marlette's serves both direct-to-consumer and a handful of small wholesale partners locally. It's a family-run operation with Marlette's husband Jesse handling green sourcing, web development, and the numbers — a project engineer by day and spreadsheet wizard by night. Between her background in math and nursing and his in engineering, the approach to coffee is equal parts sensory science and process control. Marlette completed her SCA roasting certification under Morten Münchow, later continuing at CoffeeMind Academy in Copenhagen. Her mission: help people get into specialty coffee without making it feel intimidating. She describes it as being a coffee Sherpa, meeting people where they are and helping them explore what they actually like.

What did your coffee journey look like, and when did it shift from just enjoying coffee to wanting to build something around it?

That shift happened during two very different kinds of upheaval, one personal and one shared. The day after Christmas in 2019, our family experienced a house fire. We were displaced for over a year. It was incredibly difficult, but it also created a rare opportunity to eventually rebuild and think differently about what we wanted to create moving forward. Not long after, COVID reshaped everything for everyone. For me, that meant going deeper into coffee. Roasting became more than a side interest, right alongside a very active sourdough starter phase. At the time, friends and family were already grabbing a bag here and there. As life stabilized and all of our kids were finally in school, things started to click. Demand from friends and family kept growing, and the timing felt right to take it more seriously. That's when everything accelerated. I upgraded from a Gene Cafe to an Aillio Bullet and really started diving into the science of roasting. I come from a math background, so understanding heat transfer, development, and repeatability became a bit of an obsession. From there, my husband and I made it official and launched Marlette's Coffee Company. We stayed risk-averse, kept our lifestyle intact, and stayed grounded in quality, consistency, and customer experience. We also realized there was a gap: a lot of people are curious about specialty coffee but feel intimidated by it. That became our lane.

You recently mentioned hitting 2,100 logged roasts, which is incredible. At what point did roasting shift from something learned to something intuitive? And what advice would you give to newer roasters trying to reach that level of confidence?

Now 2,300+ roasts. Early on, you're reacting to everything. Rate of rise spikes, you panic. First crack comes early, you second guess everything. You're chasing the roast. A big turning point was leaning into the science behind it. I pursued my SCA certification and trained under Morten Münchow, which completely reframed how I think about roasting. It challenged a lot of common misconceptions and grounded everything in sensory science and evidence. I later continued that path at CoffeeMind Academy in Copenhagen for my intermediate SCA roasting certification. One of the biggest takeaways was simple but powerful: what matters most is how the cup tastes, not how the roast graph looks. Don't chase the roast. Source great beans, dial in your color, and taste everything.

You've described the business as family-run. What has that actually looked like behind the scenes day to day?

We operate as a Cottage Food Class B business, fully permitted by San Diego DEHQ, which means everything runs out of a dedicated space in our home. It's surprisingly efficient and also a little chaotic in the best way. A typical roast day is 4 to 6 hours on the machine, while also juggling social media, customer outreach, and whatever else needs attention. After roasting, I'm usually doing local deliveries around North County, which has honestly been one of the best parts. You get to meet the people actually drinking your coffee. Evenings tend to be networking events or setting up pop-up tables at local events. Jesse handles green sourcing, website development, finances, and longer-term planning during evenings and weekends. The upside of being family-run is speed and trust. The downside is there's no real off switch. We're always talking about coffee. We're actively planning the transition into a commercial space and building out a team, but doing it carefully so we don't lose what makes the experience personal.

Your roast-to-order, choose-your-roast-level model is unusual. How did you decide to build the business that way? And do you find it difficult to keep quality consistent?

Most people entering specialty coffee are told there's a "right" roast level for each coffee. Light for this origin, dark for that one. But when you actually taste across roast levels, you realize it's not that simple. The same coffee can express completely different characteristics depending on how it's roasted. A lighter roast might highlight acidity and florals, while a darker roast brings out chocolate, body, and sweetness. Neither is wrong. It just depends on what someone enjoys. That's really where the model came from. Instead of telling customers what they should like, we let them explore what they do like using the same coffee as a baseline. It lowers the barrier for people coming from more traditional coffee and turns the experience into something interactive rather than prescriptive. On the consistency side, that's where 2,300+ roasts and formal SCA training really come into play. At this point, I can usually dial in a coffee to a specific roast level on the first roast, occasionally the second. We rely heavily on color analysis on every single batch. That's non-negotiable. Working on an Aillio Bullet R1 means batch sizes are small, so you're often roasting for an individual customer. That raises the bar. Every bag that goes out needs to be on point.

You've said roast recipes adapt to both the beans and the environment. What variables are you watching most closely? Have you ever had a coffee that surprised you by tasting best at a roast level you didn't expect?

Roasting at its core isn't that complicated. You're applying heat to coffee beans. There's just a lot of noise and overcomplication in the industry. Training with Morten Münchow shifted my mindset toward science-backed, evidence-based roasting. The most important tool in my kit is a color meter. That's how we ensure repeatability and consistency across roast levels. During the roast, I'm primarily focused on development time and infrared bean temperature. I'm not chasing rate of rise curves or trying to force a graph to look a certain way. The goal is always the cup. Every roast is intentional: set a path, execute it, evaluate post-roast, adjust for the next one. Never roasting on the fly. A recent surprise was a Colombia fermented natural Pink Bourbon. A customer requested it roasted dark. Some would call it a crime, but it actually held onto juicy fermented notes of lemonade and cherry while layering in deeper chocolate. It was delicious. It's a good reminder that you don't really know until you taste it.

You've hinted that not all coffee is sourced with the same care and integrity. What should consumers be asking more questions about?

As a micro roastery, we're realistic about our role in the supply chain. We intentionally work with a small group of partners who are deeply invested in quality and producer equity. Programs like Sweet Maria's farm gate initiatives are a good example. Where consumers should be asking more questions is how claims are actually backed up. "Direct trade" sounds great, but what does that actually mean in practice? What policies are in place to ensure fair wages? How is traceability verified? Coffee is still an agricultural product. Crops vary year to year. So yes, we cup. A lot. Buying based on relationships is important, but so is verifying what's actually in the cup. If you're not tasting and validating, you're making assumptions about quality.

You make a big point that better coffee doesn't require fancy gear. What setup do you wish more people felt confident using?

Honestly, a drip coffee maker. There's this idea that to enjoy specialty coffee you need a scale, gooseneck kettle, pour-over setup, and a full ritual. That can be fun, but it's not required. A good burr grinder and fresh specialty grade coffee will take you much further than expensive gear. We've spent time experimenting with common home machines so we can confidently help customers dial in their coffee no matter what equipment they're using. Grind size, coffee-to-water ratio, and freshness matter more than the brewing device. We want people to feel confident starting simple, exploring their palate, and then deciding if they even want to go deeper.

Rapid Fire

Most underrated origin?

Bali.

Coffee pet peeve?

Roasting techniques and trends with no scientific backing (e.g. mold-free coffee).

Weirdest thing that's ever happened during a roast?

A corn kernel? Nothing too weird when you have quality sourcing and the precision of the Bullet.

Is expensive coffee always better?

No. Too many reasons to list.

Light, medium, or dark (personally)?

Light.

Most unique roaster in San Diego right now?

Steady State.

One roaster outside San Diego that is changing the game?

Prolog.

Early morning roast session or late night?

Neither. Middle of the day, no little people around.

Thanks to Marlette for joining us on the subreddit. Find Marlette's Coffee Company's current offerings and follow along at marlettescoffee.com or on Instagram @marlettescoffee.