GLEN ARBOR, MI -- Perk up for this week's Made with Michigan Hands featuring Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company!
Michael Buhler, Treasurer and Co-owner of Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company said, "We've been out here since 1993. Steve Arens is our founder and he founded it on Lake Street. We moved here in the late '90s and keep expanding the operation and we roast about 100 tons of coffee a year."
It's not just Northern Michigan residents that crave the company's brews.
Buhler said, "We've got a couple crazy customers down in Australia. It costs more per pound to ship it than it does for the coffee itself."
They believe that one thing that sets their coffee apart is the freshness.
Buhler said, "The key to our roasting is that we're roasting it fresh and delivering it right away. When the coffee is ordered online, last night, it's being packaged, it's gonna ship today by fedex ground, people are gonna have it in one or two days."
Another thing is the method...
Buhler said, "We use a Sivetz hot air roaster which is like a giant popcorn popper and so the beans are totally surrounded by the hot air and roast very uniformly and we can control the temperature, control the roast that much better."
... and finally, the variety.
Buhler said, "We have all told, about 100 different coffees between the regulars, decafs, flavors, flavored decafs, several of our own special blends."
You can visit their cafe on Western Avenue in Glen Arbor or purchase the beans in grocery across the state. Check out their website, www.coffeeguys.com, for more information.
