Rhetoric Coffee

06/27/2026

01/05/2026

After ten years of struggle, joy, and grief, I’m both relieved and heartbroken to share that Rhetoric Coffee is closing.
Rhetoric started as a small East Bay roaster built around carefully sourced coffee, small-batch roasting, subscriptions, and a belief that coffee could live at the intersection of craft, art, and community. We commissioned original artwork, paid artists directly, and tried to make every bag feel like a small, thoughtful object — not just a product.
You can still find our coffee over the next couple weeks in bags at Coro Coffee Room in Berkeley and at The Heartwood in Nevada City, where it will also be served as espresso and drip.
I put everything I had into this. I’m deeply grateful to the Hursts for supporting me like family through being unhoused in my twenties, school, and the long work of trying to build something real. Thank you to the Egenes's — especially Ron — for a lifetime of mentorship. And thank you to my mom, may she rest in peace, whose pride and constant encouragement carried me through exhaustion and doubt more times than I can count.
Thank you to every collaborator, coworker, artist, market organizer, pop-up host, and customer who made this possible. This wasn’t the ending I imagined — but Rhetoric was real, it mattered, and I’m proud of what we built.

01/05/2026

After ten years of struggle, joy, and grief, I’m both relieved and heartbroken to share that Rhetoric Coffee is closing.
Rhetoric started as a small East Bay roaster built around carefully sourced coffee, small-batch roasting, subscriptions, and a belief that coffee could live at the intersection of craft, art, and community. We commissioned original artwork, paid artists directly, and tried to make every bag feel like a small, thoughtful object — not just a product.
You can still find our coffee over the next couple weeks in bags at Coro Coffee Room in Berkeley and at The Heartwood in Nevada City, where it will also be served as espresso and drip.
I put everything I had into this. I’m deeply grateful to the Hursts for supporting me like family through being unhoused in my twenties, school, and the long work of trying to build something real. Thank you to the Egenes — especially Ron — for a lifetime of mentorship. And thank you to my mom, may she rest in peace, whose pride and constant encouragement carried me through exhaustion and doubt more times than I can count.
Thank you to every collaborator, coworker, artist, market organizer, pop-up host, and customer who made this possible. This wasn’t the ending I imagined — but Rhetoric was real, it mattered, and I’m proud of what we built.

06/16/2024

Get a 'spro from me at Temescal Farmers' Market. Almost the last time you can.

06/16/2024

📢 Important Announcement from Rhetoric Coffee

We have some significant updates about our beloved coffee cart, "Rhetoric Outside." Launched in 2019, the cart has been a crucial part of our business, bringing high-quality coffee to events, farmers markets, and catering, especially at the Temescal Farmer's Market in Berkeley, California.

After over a year, we finally have the cart operational enough to return to the market!

Unfortunately, after the second crash last year, the cart sustained severe damage, more extensive than the first incident. We've been diligently working with a welder and an espresso repair tech to piece it back together. Despite our efforts, tomorrow and next Sunday will be the last opportunities to catch the cart at the farmers market.

To mark this occasion, we will offer sales of five-pound bags at a slightly discounted rate. Additionally, we will be giving away some of the original screens from our early days of screen printing bags by hand to those who purchase a five-pound bag (while supplies last).

This transition marks a significant shift for us as we move away from retail and focus exclusively on wholesale over the next two years. If you have a subscription or pending digital orders, rest assured we will be catching up on back-ordered items over the next month.

We will continue to sell coffee online in amounts of five or more pounds for those who still wish to buy directly from our website.

Thank you for your continued support!

☕ Rhetoric Coffee Team

10/14/2023

Big shout out to all the hard work that's already been done and continued work on repairing the structural portions of our espresso cart. I want to say thank you to brendan from for introducing me to Vince from Vstudio on Gilman in Berkeley.

10/09/2023

Happy Indigenous People's Day.

10/08/2023

The times.

08/27/2023

A group of Australian engineers have devised a method to make concrete 30% stronger by adding spent coffee grounds that might otherwise be destined for landfills. For the research project, a team a…

08/25/2023

I am absolutely looking forward to the ps5 release of bg3. Slay.