Prodigal roasts light coffees at its roastery in Boulder, Colorado. It releases at least one new coffee each week, and a headline coffee stays on the menu for anything from two weeks to more than two months, depending on the size of the lot. Two blends are always available: Milk Blend Espresso, built mainly on a clean, soft Colombian Caturra with a rotating second coffee, and Boulder Blend, the weekly house blend.

Prodigal does not buy coffee for blending. Its blends are made from the same fresh headline coffees as the single origins, so their components shift a little from week to week. Seasonal blends join them, such as Zuria, from Ethiopian and Colombian coffees, and Mulu Espresso, from washed and natural Ethiopian coffees. Espresso roasts are taken a touch darker than the filter roasts.

Roasting happens on Mondays. Each coffee is sold by roast date, from the next roast or from earlier batches already rested towards the three to four weeks Prodigal recommends. New coffees often go first to monthly subscribers before they reach the menu. Some lots are also sold green.

Several of its Honduran coffees come through Angel Arturo Paz, a third-generation farmer in Santa Bárbara, Honduras, whose own Itacayo farm grows Pacas and geisha. In Ethiopia, several lots come from the producer and exporter Habtamu Fikadu Aga.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Prodigal