FERNDALE — It all started with a love of coffee and the search for the perfect cup of java, and led to a wholesale and retail operation with over 140 accounts. Frank Lanzkron Tamarazo was tired of being disappointed at the end of a good meal out with his family by being served a bad cup of coffee. So he did what all good entrepreneurs do, he bought a small coffee roaster and began experimenting at home to roast and brew the best coffee available. He started with just three accounts and has rapidly grown to over 140 restaurants plus a myriad of wholesale accounts, including shipping coffee all over the country.
Chazzano Coffee Roasters and Cafe opened in October 2009 in a 1200 square foot location at 1737 East Nine Mile Road with three wholesale accounts. Chazzano Coffee now provides coffee to over 140 restaurants, cafes, retail shops, country clubs, hotels, offices, and specialty markets, as well as to thousands of regular retail customers. The company has collaborated with several local Michigan brewing companies, such as B Nektar Meadery for which he has created an Ethiopia Harrar Mead, a Dark, Dark Goose Mead, and Atwater Block’s Brewery bottles their Vanilla Java Porter with Chazzano Coffee. Dave’s Sweet Tooth has a Coffee Toffee with Chazzano’s Ethiopia Yirgacheffe beans and Corden’s Chocolate makes chocolate covered Chazzano coffee beans. Valentine’s Vodka has several Chazzano coffee infused vodkas. Aromaholics has created a Chazzano Coffee soap, too.
“Wine has 750 different flavor profiles and coffee has over 1500,” says Frank. “Chazzano Coffee offers both scheduled and impromptu coffee tastings where participants violently sniff and slurp the coffee, and analyze the mouth-feel, balance, fragrance, aroma, depth, pungency, body, and complexity of each cup, much like you would wine or single malt. You can even participate in “Drinking for the Cycle” where participants experience the same single origin coffee brewed using 6 different methods-French Press, Iced, Vacuum Syphon, Espresso, Pourover, and Turkish. It takes about 1.5 hours and you may not sleep for a few days, but it will bring a smile to your face.”
Despite many requests, Chazzano Coffee Roasters does not serve food. We want our customers to experience the 1500 possible notes that the coffee has to offer and with food that wouldn’t happen. When a customer with a good sense of humor asks for the sugar or cream, I simply smile and say that when you use either, God cries or an angel loses its wings.”
Chazzano is now sold at Western Market in Ferndale, Whole Foods Troy, Plum Markets in Bloomfield, West Bloomfield, and Ann Arbor, and One Stop Kosher Market in Southfield, as well as several caterers.
Frank Lanzkron-Tamarazo, Managing Partner and Master Roaster of Chazzano Coffee Roasters, attributes the quick growth of Chazzano to the way they do business. All of the 40 different coffees and 25 blends are roasted fresh every day except for Saturday. All wholesale accounts are provided with only enough coffee for 1.5 weeks to ensure that the coffee is as fresh as possible. Any coffee that is unsold after 2.5 weeks is donated to local homeless shelters and low-income housing. Chazzano Coffee roasts over 4000 pounds of coffee each month. Coffee may be bought by the pound, half-pound and sample bags as well as freshly brewed by the cup.
