Rolling With Rudy Baggs, Coffee-Culture Crusader

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By: Ann Kammerer, 4/2/2008

All Photographs © Dave Trumpie

Rob Flanders started his business on a lie and a $39 wedding gift.

“I was out for dinner with some clients and said I loved ‘expresso,’” says Flanders of the night he professed a passion for a drink he’d rarely had and couldn’t pronounce. “Later, I got an espresso machine for a wedding gift. My wife and I used it for years and had a blast.”

Today, Flanders’ dinner lingo is free of malapropisms as he evolves into one of Lansing’s most knowledgeable coffee artisans. As president of Rudy Baggs Coffee Roasting Company, he’s a true man of the bean, advocating the fresh-roasted experience for brew drinkers city-wide.

“Coffee is a social drink,” he says. “We want to promote that aspect of coffee—the sitting down and talking to people. You might as well do that over a good cup of coffee rather than a bad one.”  Read More>>