The Story
Madcap Coffee was founded by Ryan Knapp and Trevor Corlett, two coffee enthusiasts with a shared vision: to create exceptional coffee that celebrates the craft and connects people. Their journey began with a small café and a commitment to sourcing the finest beans, roasting them to perfection, and serving them with care.
It was founded right here in Grand Rapids in 2008, opening up its flagship café at 98 Monroe Center St. NW. Opened in 2008, our Monroe cafe was the very first Madcap flag in the ground.
Corlett and Knapp saw Grand Rapids as an opportunity to start something new in a place that was not already filled with shops, doing what they wanted to do.
We looked at a map… and noticed no one had [specialty] coffee in Grand Rapids,” Knapp says, recounting his early experiences forming the shop.
“Everyone told us not to open up downtown. People are scared to go downtown, they said. Downtown was a lot different than it is today,” recounts Knapp.
Yet both Corlett and Knapp were determined to live out their dream of creating and serving a great product. They began by focusing mainly on roasting, buying and selling. Corlett, after participating in two failed businesses, dove deeply into his passion for great roasting, while Knapp honed his skills for buying.
Since then, it’s expanded with another café and roastery in GR, located at 1041 Fulton Street. There are also Madcap locations in Detroit and Leland.
Our founder, Trevor Corlett, is an award-winning, nationally recognized barista and trainer. We have been spotlighted by national media and in competition for our coffees, roasting profiles, and innovative drink recipes.
Madcap Coffee is competing to be the best in the nation.
Sourcing & Relationships
We source each coffee through traceable, direct relationships with producers around the globe.
We spend about a 3rd of the year outside of the country visiting different farms,” says Knapp.
Every year, Trevor and Ryan taste around 3,000 types of coffee. Rather than doing this from the comfort of their café, they spend much of the year outside of the U.S., visiting the land where the coffee is grown and meeting the people who farm it.
They focus on fair and direct trade, which is why their business has taken them out of the country. “Coffee is going to go through so many pairs of hands before it gets to us,” says Knapp. “A big part of what we do is to work directly with the farms we buy from. In El Salvador we travel to the farm and work directly with the farmers, but in Ethiopia you’re dealing with big systems” says Knapp.
Though Madcap’s end goal may be to provide deliciously complex coffee, they start by building relationships. They seek coffee growers who share their enthusiasm and work closely with them to ensure everyone is working toward the same goal. Some of their farmers have been working with them since they started. No matter how long they’ve been around, Madcap makes sure they’re being paid a premium price and well taken care of.
Additionally, the name of every Madcap coffee highlights the grower, farm or region of origin. Their website also prominently features the people and places behind their coffee. With Madcap, you can trust the coffee you’re drinking is helping achieve a sustainable coffee economy.
We’ve bought coffee from Santa Barbara, Honduras, since 2013, and in the process, we’ve developed close relationships with the producers we work with there: Juan Angel and his son Irvin Izaguirre, Nelson Moreno, and Miguel Ortiz.
Both blends include coffees from José Arturo Alarcón in Huehuetenango, with whom Madcap has worked for the past three years. Next year, Corlett said Dito will incorporate coffees from Madcap’s longest-standing partners, the Rodriguez family, in El Salvador.
Roasting Philosophy
Roasting coffee is a delicate process that transforms green coffee beans into the aromatic, flavorful beans we brew. At Madcap Coffee, roasting is both an art and a science.
Temperature and time are critical factors in coffee roasting. Madcap’s roasters use their expertise to balance these variables, creating roasts that highlight the natural flavors of the beans. Lighter roasts preserve the bean’s acidity and floral notes, while darker roasts develop richer, more complex flavors like chocolate and caramel.
Madcap’s roasters skillfully navigate these reactions to create balanced and flavorful coffees.
Even though they have all of the data from Cropster, each roast is still manual. They monitor it closely and make adjustments on the fly based on temperature, humidity, etc. They monitor the temperature throughout, weight loss from moisture and about 100 other data points. I was familiar with the overall roast process and the care that goes into it, but the level of detail MadCap goes to even surprised me. There is no doubt, roasting great coffee is absolutely an art form.
When they’re in their roasting facility, they make sure the highest level of consistency remains in each batch of coffee produced. They’re the first to admit their obsession with the nuances and subtleties of their roasts, and it shows in the final product.
Freshness is a hallmark of Madcap Coffee. They roast their coffee in small batches to ensure it reaches customers at its peak flavor. Coffee is at its best within a few weeks of roasting, and Madcap’s commitment to freshness guarantees a superior cup every time.
They roast Sunday through Thursday for an average of around 1,300 pounds of coffee each week. Each morning they arrive at the roastery bright and early and see what orders came in from the night before. Any orders placed the day before are roasted that day and then shipped out—getting the coffee to the shops as fresh as possible. They also make all of their bags in-house at the time of packaging by attaching the badges and labels for each bag and then writing on the roast date and batch number, which gives every bag a nice personal touch.
What to Try
Madcap’s dependable Bolt coffee house blend gets it name from our recognizable lightning bolt and was intended to be an approachable blend of coffees from Central and South America. When sourcing Bolt’s components, our roastery team aims to create a sweet yet simple, full bodied final cup. The blend of coffees offer low acidity and caramelized sugar sweetness. This always-on blend tastes delicious no matter how you brew it — delicious on drip, pour over, or even as espresso.
Designed to deliver with steamed milk or stand on its own, Eureka was made to be the essential espresso blend for service in our cafes. To create the ideal balance of syrupy and sweet year-round, our roastery team seeks out full-bodied coffees from Central or South America with rich, structured sugar profiles. This foundation gets blended with coffee from East Africa with bright citrus and soft, fruity acidity.
This omni blend is both versatile and delicious. Rich chocolatey with a hint of red fruit finishing with a candied orange sweetness. Vibrant acidity and a balanced creamy body.
When creating seasonal blends like Lake Effect, we aim to capture the feelings and flavors of the season itself, highlighting the beauty found within its elements. In the dead of Midwest winters, brief glimpses of sunshine remind us that spring isn’t too far off. Lake Effect is inspired by these warm, hopeful moments offering a welcome contrast to the doldrums of winter.
Karinga AA from Thika District, Kiambu County in Kenya is thoughtfully blended with Tamrat Alemayew from Gedeo, Gedeb in Ethiopia, delivering bright citrus and punchy stone fruit anchored by delicate florality. The cup shines with notes of blood orange, lemon curd, and apricot.
Known for their in-house roasted beans and bright, intricate flavors, Madcap has something for casual sippers and serious coffee enthusiasts alike.