JBC Coffee Roasters is a Madison, Wisconsin roaster founded by Michael Johnson, a Q-grader, and run with co-owner Laura Salinger Johnson, who came to coffee as a writer and editor. The company is 50% women-owned. Sam Munger is head roaster and green buyer.

Its philosophy rests on three points: quality, buying only coffees it expects to inspire; a human story, keeping the producer’s part visible from seed to cup; and sustainability, buying from producers directly and through brokers who share that aim, with a balance of financial and environmental concerns. It pairs that philosophy with “down-home Midwest hospitality”.

JBC has won six Good Food Awards, in 2016, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2025, and has had more than 340 coffees rated 90 or above by Coffee Review. Its team has also placed at SCA competitions: fifth in the Roaster’s Choice Championship, third and seventh in the U.S. Cup Tasters and tenth in the U.S. Brewers Cup.

Single origins from Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi and Sumatra, several of them single-farmer lots, sit beside the Rock the House blend, the Twisted espresso blend and two Colombian decafs. Once a month the roastery holds a public cupping, opening with a coffee presentation and ending with questions, and it has hosted a Halloween latte art throwdown. Private tours and cuppings can be arranged, and kerbside collection is available at the roastery.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: JBC Coffee Roasters