Petaluma Coffee & Tea Company.

Gardner and Sheila Bride founded Petaluma Coffee Company in 1989 at Foundry Wharf, in the newly formed Historic Riverfront Warehouse District, as a roastery and café for retail and wholesale customers. In 1998 they bought a tea importing business to grow the wholesale side, and the name became Petaluma Coffee & Tea Company. The extra beans, a bigger roaster and larger quantities of tea needed room, so in 2001 the business moved to 212 2nd Street, near the then developing Theater District.

The tea list runs to 55 loose teas and tisanes in five families, all sold by the quarter pound. The black shelf is the deepest: Assam Golden Flowery BOP, Ceylon Superior, Yunnan FOP, Three Kitten Keemun Congo, Lapsang Souchong, a Darjeeling blend from Mirik, Russian Caravan with silver needles, two Earl Greys and a dozen flavoured blacks. Greens go from China Gunpowder and Lunching Dragonwell to Organic Japanese Bancha and Huang Mountain mao feng; there are three oolongs, a yerba mate, one white and a row of tisanes.

Prices follow the roaster's logic rather than a tea boutique's: most quarter pounds cost between US$ 4.75 and US$ 8.75, so a 4 oz bag of Milk Oolong is US$ 6.00 and the Bai Mudan white US$ 8.50. The café serves the same teas by the cup alongside the house coffee, with pastries from a local bakehouse and a gallery wall of rotating local art, and the counter is open six days a week from eight to four. Orders ship nationwide from the shop.