Daniel B.
Yelp
I've been in a lot of cool coffee shops and I have to say Roasting Plant might be the coolest one I've been to to date. Why? Because of their unique "Javabot" coffee bean storage, roasting, delivery, grinding, and brewing system. Yeah, it may look gimmicky as hell, but the result - at least in our case - was some very fresh and delicious cups of coffee. My fiancee and I were truly impressed. My fiancee is the coffee connoisseur (despite trying many different coffees from all over the world, my coffee tasting palate just isn't very refined). If she approves, it must be good. All I know is our drinks tasted excellent.
Roasting Plant originally started in New York. This location in Detroit opened in 2013 and is the first Roasting Plant location to open outside of New York. It's located on the ground level of the First National Building in downtown Detroit and, as of 2017, is partially owned by CSI: New York and Homeland actor Hill Harper. There are two other Roasting Plant shops in Michigan (Ann Arbor and Dearborn); those shops are currently involved in a lawsuit (https://www.freep.com/story/money/business/2018/01/27/roasting-plant-coffee-sued-fraud/1069267001/).
This location isn't terribly big, but it's not tiny either. There's limited seating, both inside and out on the fenced-in patio. This is a trendy, modern (some might describe it as futuristic) cafe. The interior space is dominated by the Javabot system. It consists of a series of clear pneumatic tubes (operated by pressurized air/gas) that store and deliver the coffee you order. Javabot is what makes Roasting Plant different from other coffee shops. Javabot roasts coffee beans and stores them for no more than 48 hours. Roasting Plant describes this as "precision roasting." When you order coffee, roasted beans are sent from storage tubes to grinders and brewers behind the counter. This ensures fresh, peak-flavor coffee.
You can see the green unroasted beans and the brown roasted beans sitting in the tubes. You can also see beans getting air-roasted. And when you place an order, you can watch the roasted beans of your choice (you can even mix beans) get sent through the air from the storage tubes to the counter. It's fun to watch.
When we visited, 10 different types of coffee beans were available. There were 20 storage tubes. Each type of coffee bean was stored in two tubes, one for unroasted beans and one for roasted beans. Along with ordering coffee to be grinded and brewed in-house, you can buy the beans by themselves. Both the unroasted and roasted beans had dispenser openings, but I noticed only the roasted beans had pricing. I saw roasted beans selling anywhere from $18 per pound (Brazil Serra Perola Negra) to $28 per pound (Guatemala Capetillo). The per-pound prices for roasted beans may be outside the $18-28 range I just happened to see. Roasting Plant sources their beans, that include single origin beans, from all over the world including Ethiopia, China, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, East Africa, and the Caribbean among other places.
Brewed-by-the-cup coffee comes in small, medium, and large sizes. They range in price from as little as $2.25 for a small to $3.75 for a large. Extras like espresso shots, flavor shots, milk, and whipped cream cost $0.75 each. Espresso-based drinks come in double, triple, and quad servings for as little as $3 for a double Americano to $6 for a quad Mocha or White Mocha. On top of that, there may be an additional $1-2 charge per cup depending on the bean or blend you order. Roasting Plant also serves a variety of iced coffee drinks, kombucha (on tap), iced teas, shakes (e.g. coffee shakes, green tea matcha shake, cookie dough shake), smoothies, hot tea, hot chocolate, and assorted cookies, cakes, bars, donuts, and other pastries. The pastry items cost roughly $3-4 per slice/piece.
My fiancee and I ended up trying the "Ice D Blend" of Peru Cajamarca and Guatemala Capetillo (small, $7) and the Brazil Serra Perola Negra (small, $5.25). Both were iced lattes with flavor shots of vanilla. The Ice D Blend was made with almond milk and the Brazil Serra Perola Negra was made with whole milk. Both drinks were cold, refreshing, and very satisfying. They had just the right amount of great coffee flavor (rich and full-bodied) along with creaminess and sweetness; pretty much ideal iced lattes to me.
The storage tubes have helpful tasting flavors and notes for each type of coffee bean if you need help deciding what to order. For example, the Guatemala Capetillo was described as aromatic and complex with flavors of sweet Fuji apple, pear Melba, and milk chocolate. The bean labels also include origin, certification, process, and food pairing information.
Wren H was our server and she was great; helpful and efficient.
Trivia: According to the Detroit Free Press article linked to above, one investor (Mike Shehadi) spent $600,000 on three Javabot machines. That's $200,000 per Javabot.
