Lake City Coffee

Russell Volz used to hate coffee. To him it tasted like charred asphalt mixed with regret. Then a friend handed him a cup he had roasted himself at a church campout, and it was smooth: no bitterness, no burnt aftertaste, just rich chocolatey flavour. He started bugging his friend to teach him to roast, and before long was roasting his own beans and making everyone he knew try them. Somewhere along the way he met Alisha, who came from the Hills Brothers Coffee family and brings a professionally trained palate as a wine sommelier. Late-night roasting sessions and road trips hunting for good coffee later, she suggested they start a business. They founded Lake City Coffee Roasters with a simple goal: roast the smoothest, lowest-acid coffee they could find and get it to people while it was still fresh: no long warehouse storage, no middlemen. They source high-quality beans, mostly from Tarrazú in Costa Rica, roast them low and slow in small batches to order, and ship the same day. Alisha handles much of the tasting and day-to-day operations while Russell does most of the roasting.