At Lake City Coffee, Alisha and I (Russell) love fresh roasted coffee that's smooth as silk. That's why we gently roast our beans to perfection and we roast and ship the same day.

Even with fresh beans, you'll still need the right coffee brewing tools and skills. We'll recommend the best brewing equipment and then show you how to use them. With Alisha and I on your team, you'll be brewing the best cup of coffee that you're likely to find anywhere.

Coffee Worth Dreaming About

spokane coffee roaster

Coffee was never intended to wake you up, keep you awake, and kick you in the pants. Though it'll do those things, coffee's true value is as a comfort food. So, take a minute and chill-out!

…imagine taking a few minutes out of your hectic life for a soul satisfyingly smooth cup of coffee. You might be in your car, at work, or at home, but this time is for you, when your mind calms, your breath steadies, you relax, and say, "Ahhhh… that's good. That's reeeeal good".

It's almost like the worries of life recede and your world shrinks to just you and that cup of coffee. And for a few minutes, everything in your life seems to be in place.

Raising the Bar of Specialty Coffee

Believe it or not, specialty coffee was not invented in Seattle.  Actually, your Great-Grandmother roasted up her own specialty coffee at home.  Each week she roasted just enough beans to get her family through one week of delightful bliss. Because her coffee was so fresh, it was also super smooth, without a hint of bitterness.

At Lake City Coffee, Alisha and I don't expect you to take the time and effort to roast your own coffee every week, so we do it for you. Our goal is to roast coffee that's so good, that you want Alisha and me to become your personal coffee roaster. Then we'll teach you how to make coffee that would make your Great-Grandma proud.

Coffee Beans Roasted To Perfection

Meticulously Selected Beans

Low-n-Slow Roasting

Great coffee starts with great coffee beans. Yet, most coffee roasters never taste test the beans that they buy. A few will taste test two or three beans. Yet each year, we taste test over 2 dozen samples of beans. Why do we go through all this effort to select just one bean?  Because you're worth the effort of matching that one perfect bean with our very specific taste profile.

We've tasted coffee from just about every coffee growing country in the world. Going to these extremes to find one unique bean seems like a lot of effort and it is, but it's well worth it and you can taste the difference!

If the bean is not super smooth with perfectly balanced chocolate notes AND a depth of character unlike anything we've ever experienced, then we're not interested.

When it comes to the smoothest beans (non-bitter) with a variety of flavors, we absolutely love Costa Rican coffee, specifically from the Tarrazu region.

Our Costa Rican Tarrazu beans are high altitude, shade grown, hand picked, mountain water washed, sun dried, and carefully hand sorted by small, single-source, Costa Rican, farmers. Costa Rica Tarrazu is our only source of beans.

Low-n-Slow Coffee Roasting

Large industrial coffee roasters burn the snot out of their beans by roasting hot-n-fast. Italian roast, French Roast, Espresso Roast, and the like, are in reality just different shades of burnt.

Quite the opposite, I roast the old fashion way; low-n-slow; gently bringing our beans to a beautiful light, medium, or barely-dark color. This low-n-slow roasting method preserves as much of the bean's natural oils as possible, giving your beans a rich, super smooth, and naturally sweet flavor with prominent notes of chocolate and nut.

conservative coffee roaster
Russell Roasting

With only one bean, all you have to do is choose your roast; Delectable Dark, Majestic Medium, and White Lightning.  And yes, we also have the best Decaf and Espresso that you're likely to find anywhere.

Roasted & Shipped the Same Day

Lake City Coffee

Here's a little known fact.  All roasted coffee starts going stale in about a month and no amount of space age packaging can change that fact. Unfortunately, a vast majority of the coffee sold in the U.S. has been sitting in warehouses or on store shelves for months if not years.

We measure freshness in hours, not months. From our roaster to your table in 24-72 hours. Your coffee is still warm when I put it in the shipping box. When coffee is this fresh, you can taste a HUGE difference.

Brewing Awesomely Smooth Coffee

Picking the right beans and roasting them to perfection is only 50% of the great-cup-of-coffee equation. The other 50% is in the brewing. Alisha and I will teach you how to brew up a cup of coffee that your Great-Grandmother would be proud of.

I've spent the last decade trying every kind of coffee brewing technique imaginable and trying to perfect each of those brewing methods.

The details of my experimentation and conclusions can be found in my article "How To Make The Smoothest Cup of Coffee".  Just Click Here.

smoothest coffee beans

Your Personal Coffee Roaster

When we moved to Coeur d'Alene Idaho, we thought that most of our customers would come from Coeur d'Alene. They didn't. Today, 95% of our fresh roasted coffee gets shipped to customers all over the United States.

Originally our goal was to be known as the best Coeur d'Alene Coffee Roaster.  Today, our goal is to just be your coffee roaster.

conservative coffee

Just last week we shipped to:

  • Spokane WA
  • Bellevue NE
  • Bronxville NY
  • Henderson NV
  • Clancy MT
  • McLean VA
  • Georgetown TX
  • Sellersville PA
  • Taylorville, IL
  • Brooklyn MN
  • Gillette WY
  • Lebanon OR
  • just to name a few

Lake City Coffee Owners

To Alisha and me (Russell), Lake City Coffee is more of a passion than it is a business. Sure we've grown like gang busters, but becoming the next Charbucks is the last thing that we want. Our focus is creating great whole bean coffee that we love to drink and then we love sharing it with you.

We love what we do and most of all we love talking with our customers. We talk about politics, religion, art, history, and yes coffee. So, if you're so inclined to find great coffee and fun people to buy from, then give us a try. We're pretty confident that you'll love the experience, oh… and the coffee too.

Russell and Alisha