Zingerman's Coffee Company Roasts Quietly and Means It
The fourth stop in our Zingerman's Universe series. On Plaza Drive, a small roasting operation takes single-origin beans seriously enough to make you rethink your morning cup.
Four pieces into this series and I'm still on Plaza Drive. The Bakehouse, the Creamery, the Candy Manufactory, and now the Coffee Company all operate out of the same south-side commercial complex near the airport, doing specialized work in unglamorous buildings. Zingerman's Coffee Company is at 3723 Plaza Drive, sharing the address with the Creamery, now independently operated as Sanilac Creamery,1The Creamery left the Zingerman's Community of Businesses in fall 2025 and now operates independently as Sanilac Creamery. and the Candy Manufactory, and it might be the quietest of the bunch. No cafe seating to speak of. No latte art. Just a roasting operation that sources, roasts, and sells coffee with the same single-minded focus that defines everything on this stretch of asphalt.
The Coffee Company launched in 2003 as part of the Community of Businesses expansion. Allen Leibowitz, the managing partner, built the program around direct-trade relationships with farms and cooperatives in Central America, East Africa, and Indonesia. The approach is simple in concept and demanding in execution: find specific farms growing specific varieties at specific elevations, buy their beans at above-market prices, and roast them in a way that lets you taste where they came from.
The Coffee
The lineup leans heavily toward single-origin offerings, which is the first thing that separates Zingerman's from most of the coffee you can buy in Ann Arbor. Each bag tells you the country, the region, the farm or cooperative, the elevation, and the processing method. This is not decorative information. It's the argument for why the coffee tastes the way it does.
The Road House Joe is the daily drinker, a medium roast that Zingerman's Roadhouse pours by the pot. It's smooth, balanced, and does what a house coffee should do: be good without requiring your full attention. A 12-ounce bag runs around $14.
Espresso Blend #1 is darker and built for extraction, with a chocolate-forward profile suited to milk drinks. Current size and price should be confirmed through Zingerman's Coffee Company.
Where the lineup gets interesting is the rotating single-origins, which turn over with harvest seasons and availability. Recent offerings have included a Guatemala Huehuetenango and an Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, and they typically run $16 to $22 per bag depending on the origin.
The Panamanian Geisha, when available, sits at the top of the range, a floral, fruit-driven style priced above the everyday blends; current details belong to the live shop.
How It Compares to RoosRoast
Ann Arbor is fortunate to have two serious independent roasters, and the question comes up: which is better? The honest answer is that they're doing different things.
RoosRoast is personality-forward. John Roos names his coffees things like Lobster Butter Love and Portland in the 90s. The branding is playful, the roasting leans into bold flavor profiles, and the cafe locations give people a place to sit and drink. RoosRoast functions as both a brand and a community space.
Zingerman's Coffee Company is different. There are no clever names. There's no cafe with mismatched furniture and local art. The focus is on the beans themselves: where they grew, who grew them, how they were processed, and what the roast does to bring that origin story into the cup. If RoosRoast is the coffee shop where your barista knows your order, Zingerman's Coffee Company is the wine shop where the buyer has been to the vineyards.
RoosRoast offers a familiar local blend program, while Zingerman's Coffee Company emphasizes single-origin coffees and detailed sourcing. Both approaches have value, and Ann Arbor supports both at a high level.
The Supply Chain
Like the Bakehouse and the Candy Manufactory, the Coffee Company functions as infrastructure for the rest of the Zingerman's network, a role the Creamery also played until it became an independent supplier in fall 2025. The Deli pours their coffee. The Roadhouse pours their coffee. Zingerman's Mail Order ships their beans nationwide. Walk into a Zingerman's business and order coffee, and you're drinking something roasted on Plaza Drive.
The wholesale side extends beyond the Zingerman's family too. Local restaurants, offices, and shops carry their beans. It's the same pattern I've described in every piece in this series: a production operation that feeds quality into the local food ecosystem without most consumers knowing the source.
Small-Batch, and They Mean It
The roasting happens on a small drum roaster, not the Loring that RoosRoast uses, but a more traditional setup that the Coffee Company chose because it suits their approach to single-origin roasting. Batches are small. Roast profiles are adjusted for each origin, which means someone is paying attention to every batch rather than running a standardized program. This is the reason the Guatemala and the Ethiopia taste as different from each other as they do. A uniform roast would flatten those differences. The Coffee Company's whole business model depends on preserving them.
The roasting operation is visible from the retail area. You can see the roaster pulling samples, checking color, making notes. The process looks less like manufacturing and more like cooking: adjustments by sight and smell and experience, not by timer. That tracks with everything else on Plaza Drive. The Bakehouse judges dough by feel. The Creamery watches milk change in the vat. The Candy Manufactory pulls caramel at the right color. Zingerman's businesses trust trained hands over automated systems, and the products are better for it.
Plaza Drive, Part Four
Plaza Drive is not a destination that sells itself on appearance. It is a production campus where multiple Zingerman's businesses make and sell their products from practical commercial buildings.
The Coffee Company might be the easiest to overlook in this complex. Bread is tangible. Cheese is visible. Candy is impulsive. Coffee beans in a bag don't announce themselves the same way. But brew a cup of that Guatemala at home on a quiet morning, and you'll understand what the Coffee Company has been doing at 3723 Plaza Drive all along: taking a commodity product and turning it into something specific, traceable, and good enough to make you slow down and taste it.
Zingerman's Coffee Company is at 3723 Plaza Dr, Ann Arbor. Beans available at the retail counter, through Zingerman's Mail Order, and at Zingerman's businesses throughout Ann Arbor.