Conscious Cup Roasters

Conscious Cup Coffee Roasters opened in 2006, in a small cafe and drive-thru in Crystal Lake IL. They jumped into the coffee industry head first.

There are a few ways that coffee roasters can buy coffee. The first and most popular way is from the many specialty coffee importers in the United States who travel the world in search of coffees to sell. Nowadays, most of the relationships between a roaster and an importer can happen online. Some roasters work to cultivate relationships directly with the people growing their coffee. These relationships are often facilitated and managed by an importer and can be beneficial for all parties. Conscious Cup buys coffee from 3 or 4 importers at any given time. Every week they sample a variety of coffees from different countries around the world taking note of the ones they really like. They will do this over the course of a few weeks before returning to their favorites for another sample. From these coffees, seasonal coffee offerings are curated.Some coffee origins they will buy from the same farms year-after-year. Like the Costa Rican Las Lajas, a fantastic processing operation focused on serving fine micro-lot, organic coffees, and for their experimental processing methods. Or they’ll contract a coffee like the Fair Trade Uganda Bukonzo, which is an award-winning coffee from a Women’s Owned Cooperative.

Conscious Cup was the first US roaster to import this coffee and in 2017 and was selected among the world’s 30 best by Coffee Review. Conscious Cup takes a ton of pride sourcing the absolute best coffees they can, getting to know the producers, and even traveling to meet them.