Meet Mike Bawden | Coffee roaster and educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mike Bawden and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mike, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
I’ve thought a lot about risk over the last two years. I left my secure job in the civil service in Germany teaching at university to come to the USA and start a coffee roastery, cafe and coffee education business. While many people have taken bigger risks, for me this is arguably the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. How do you weigh up the known against the unknown? My life in Germany at university compared to the potential of living my dream here in the USA working with coffee?

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?

I’ve been working hard to launch Curious Coffee for over two years now and since August 2023 full-time in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’m from England originally, but before moving to the US in August 2023 I had lived in Berlin, Germany for 17 years. I worked at the university in Berlin, teaching English, creating courses and training future teachers. Coffee had always been something I loved since a trip to Italy over 20 years ago where I had some eye-opening coffee experiences. But things gradually started to get out of hand after I bought my first real espresso machine in 2015. From this moment on, I spent every free moment brewing coffee at home and learning everything I could about it on my own and with the help of books and online materials. In 2022 things stepped up considerably when I bought my first coffee roaster. I used to roast on my roof terrace looking out over the roofs of Berlin. At this point the seed for curious coffee was sown.

As an educator, I was well placed identify what it was that I still needed to learn. The absolute key to having a coffee business focused on high-end specialty coffee is developing excellent sensory skills. I took sensory courses and started training my sensory skills in a much more structured way than I had ever done before.

It was at this time that I met Fey Chen. Fey is a coffee competition judge, a green coffee consultant, and the education coordinator for the Specialty Coffee Association, Germany. She spends lots of her time travelling and tasting the very best coffees in the world. So I was very lucky to meet her and even luckier to meet her at time when she wasn’t travelling as much as she often does. Fey took me under her wing, introduced me to some amazing coffee people in the vibrant coffee scene in Berlin, and we would meet up once a week to roast, taste coffee, and do coffee experiments – like brewing the same coffee with different types of water to see what impact this has on the flavor. We would normally start early and continue until our taste buds were fried and we were just so caffeinated that we couldn’t carry on at which point we would go and get some food at a cozy Korean restaurant around the corner from my apartment.

In August 2023, I moved to Ann Arbor with my family and could devote myself full-time to setting up curious coffee. I had naively thought that this might take a few months. However, I had underestimated how big a task setting up the kind of coffee business that I imagined would be. My to-do lists grew and grew and included all sorts of things I had no idea how to complete. For some of these I could find people to help me, but with other tasks I just had to learn how to do these things myself. Coffee is incredibly complex, so to say that my coffee skills were good enough sounds very arrogant, but I realized that there is a lot more to starting a coffee business than just roasting and brewing great coffee! I’ve learned a lot about coffee and a lot about business, marketing and more and I’m excited to carry on learning. Curious coffee will feed my own curiosity for many years to come.

My starting point wasn’t seeing a gap in the market or a business opportunity, but rather my starting point was a love of coffee and a love for teaching and sharing this passion. My task then was to work out if it was possible to create a viable business from this idea. Over a period of about 16 months the seed of curious coffee matured to what it is today: a coffee roastery, cafe and coffee education business with the goal of elevating the coffee experience. A lot of people drink coffee on a daily basis and very much enjoy their coffee. It’s one of those little pleasures in life for a lot of us — a highlight in a morning or afternoon routine. People enjoy drinking coffee with friends and family too, both at home and in coffee shops. I want to take this pleasure and help people get a little more out of it. My aim is to meet people where they are and take them as far as they want to go. Excellent but not elitist. I – for example – mix my own water for brewing coffee using deionized water and minerals to remineralize it, so that it brings out the best in my coffees. But I also appreciate that not everyone wants to do this. I can help people simply and easily make a great coffee at home or if they want to I can help them along their path of fine tuning the coffee experience and turning it into a rewarding hobby. Others will be happy to just pop by the cafe and enjoy the fruits of my work.

I have faced many challenges along the way but the end – or better the start – is now in sight and I can’t wait! If the last pieces of the jigsaw come together as they should then I will be launching curious coffee in December 2024! I will kick off by serving freshly brewed coffee at the wonderful Bløm Mead and Cider in Ann Arbor where you will also be able to buy my beans to brew at home. If you’re reading this and not based in or near Ann Arbor, you will also be able to purchase coffee, brewing equipment and other goodies on my website.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?

I’m pretty new to Ann Arbor and I know there’s still a lot more to discover. Ann Arbor definitely punches above its weight when it comes to good food and drink! As I’m writing this it’s fall and we’ve had such beautiful weather, so friends would definitely need to do some nice walks around my local area in Ann Arbor, at the Arboretum here, and some day trips out of the city. And of course, get some cider and donuts and get lost in a corn maze!

Some of my favorite food destinations are Slurping Turtle for their incredible Ramen, Zingerman’s Roadhouse for great American food and a selection of top local beers, Zola for modern café cuisine (especially good if I’m missing my European haunts.) When it comes to fine dining, I really like the Dixboro house with its excellent cuisine and laid-back atmosphere. I’d also want to stop by Q Bakehouse and market where you can get amazing Asian American baked goods and excellent coffee! Shatila bakery in Dearborn is wonderful, and I’ll be serving their delicious baklava at Curious Coffee.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to dedicate this shoutout to my coffee mentor and dear friend Fey Chen

Website: https://www.curious-coffee.com

Instagram: @micsmox and @_curiouscoffee_

Alternative to green highlighted section:
I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be kicking off in January 2025. I will be serving coffee and the wonderful Bløm Mead and Cider in Ann Arbor and you’ll also be able to buy my beans to brew at home.