sherry quach — founder & roaster

coffee society · berkeley, ca

Sherry Quach is the founder and roaster of Coffee Society, a specialty coffee micro roaster in Berkeley, California, established in 2023. She chooses every coffee herself — only lots that score in the top few percent of coffee grown anywhere — roasts them to order in small batches, and writes every post in the journal.

how she got here

Coffee has been part of Sherry's day since she was ten — Nescafé with condensed milk and coconut crackers after school. During the pandemic she started exploring specialty coffee and ran into the same problem most people do: a lot of jargon, a lot of claims on the bag, and a lot of disappointing cups. Wanting to separate what actually makes coffee taste good from the marketing, she started roasting at home, then in small commercial batches, and founded Coffee Society in 2023.

Today she tastes dozens of coffees each season to choose the three or four Coffee Society will roast, then works out how to roast each one. She keeps the roast light enough that you can taste where the coffee came from, never so dark that it turns oily and bitter.

what she does for partner cafés

• Supplies a rotating lineup of seasonal coffees to cafés and offices across Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco.
• Sends a simple brewing recipe with every coffee so drinks taste the same no matter who's behind the bar.
• Runs tasting and training sessions with café teams.

how she writes

Every journal post starts with a short answer, uses real numbers instead of vague advice, and ends with the questions people actually ask. If something can't be tasted or measured, it doesn't go in.