Higher Grounds Trading Company
Roasting 100% Fair Trade and Organic Handcrafted Coffees
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The Coffee Bar
Our Coffee Bar is not your average coffee shop: it's an experience unto itself. It's a tasting room for Higher Grounds' coffee and espresso; a retail boutique featuring global and local artisan wares; a peaceful, off-the-beaten-path lounge; and often even a venue for regional musicians to host intimate live performances. To find us, please see our Directions & Hours page. Read on for what makes our coffee bar so unique:
Location
We're located on the historic grounds of the Village at Grand Traverse Commons – a former state mental hospital, home to one of the nation's largest historic adaptive reuse projects. A beautiful solution to urban sprawl, the Village is comprised of completed and in-progress renovations of the buildings that once comprised the Traverse City State Hospital, formerly the Northern Michigan Asylum. In addition to now being home to independent boutiques, artisan shops and restaurants, the 63-acre site is an oasis of natural beauty, with hiking trails, artesian springs, arboretums and community gardens. Our Coffee Bar & Roastery are housed in what was formerly the asylum's laundry facility, a beautiful and funky high-ceilinged warehouse saturated with natural light. We share this building with Left Foot Charley, Traverse City's only in-town winery and tasting room.
Beverages
We take great care to ensure that the drinks our baristas serve you in the Coffee Bar will be the best you've ever had. Your cup of coffee starts with fresh beans – roasted just steps away in our roastery next door – that are ground and brewed to order while you wait. A variety of brew methods are available, including French press, café solo, Chemex, Kona drip and cold brew. We have a full menu of traditional free-pour espresso drinks, crafted using our own Mayan Magic Espresso blend, milk from a local pasture-fed dairy farm, and organic syrups made in-house. We are also pleased to offer fair-trade tea and teasans produced locally by Light of Day Organics, and sustainably harvested yerba mate from Minnesota-based Nativa.
To-Go Mugs
Our Coffee Bar is "paper free," meaning that we do not use or offer disposable to-go cups. Instead, when you order a drink to go, we serve it to you in a ceramic to-go mug – these are mugs that are regularly donated to us by our customers to support the paper-free cause. We are steadfastly committed to our paperless policy, which not only keeps ourselves and our customers from contributing to landfills, but it also reduces our carbon footprint – because even "biodegradable" disposable mugs take energy to produce.
Global Marketplace
Hand-carved kitchenware from a fair-trade women's co-op in Kenya. Leather journals from an artist in Leelanau County, Mich. Local organic fruit preserves, fair-trade jewelry from Mexico, CDs by regional independent musicians – our retail space is a unique shopping experience, featuring sustainable products for better living and a better planet. We are proud to offer wares from the following local and global enterprises:
Bodum – Coffee and tea accoutrements – NYC, New York
Los Cuchareros – Handmade, fair-trade spoons & utensils – Guatemala
Earthwork Music – CDs by regional artists – Big Rapids, Mich.
Food For Thought – Michigan-made organic preserves – Honor, Mich.
Liz Lovely – Vegan, gluten-free treats – Waitsfield, VT
Naturally Nutty – Natural nut butters – Traverse City, Mich.
Neahshasha – Sustainably made, vintage-inspired aprons – Traverse City, Mich.
Peace Supplies – Stickers & pins for cyclists & radicals – Tuscon, AZ
Proletarian Threads – Locally screenprinted sweatshop-free tees – Traverse City, Mich.
Shadowland Seeds – Michigan honey products – Whitecloud, Mich.
Still Point Farm – Michigan maple syrup – Empire, Mich.
Yana Dee – Handmade market bags & aprons – Lake City, Mich.
