“I’m passionate about teaching and learning, and I want to share the journey that I’ve had through coffee,” says Mike Bawden. He’s turned what had been a hobby into a new career with Curious Coffee.
Focusing on “pretty high-end, specialty coffee,” he’s opened a small downtown café inside Lauren Bloom and Matt Ritchey’s Bløm Mead + Cider, with morning and early afternoon hours that help make fuller use of the space. “It’s just a great setup for both parties,” he says.
The British-born Bawden spent two decades as an academic in Germany, creating courses, training teachers, and teaching English. When his art historian wife, Tina, was offered a named professorship at U-M in 2023, they sacrificed his secure civil service job to move here, along with their two children, now nine and twelve. “People normally regret the things they don’t do,” he explains, “rather than the things that they do.”
Cultivating direct relationships with coffee farmers and reputable importers, he samples and selects varieties to roast himself, offering them by the cup or in branded bags named for the grower and showing the farm, region, variety, process, and flavor notes.
“My style is to roast quite light and use very high-quality coffee so that the natural quality of the bean shines through without that earthy, roasty flavor profile that a lot of people traditionally quite liked,” he says. “Generally, there’s a move away from that.”
The menu includes hand brews, a drip of the day, cappuccinos, lattes, espresso, and Americano. There’s also tea and other drinks, along with house-made banana bread with pecans and chocolate chips, brownies with pistachio and raspberry, and baklava from Shatila Bakery in Dearborn.
It’s not the place for a supersized, syrupy concoction, but rather for experiencing coffee’s subtle but distinct elements: sweetness, acidity, mouthfeel, finish, and aftertaste. That’s why Bawden uses only purified water that he remineralizes with his own recipe, and has a no-laptops policy for patrons. “I’ve agonized over different roast profiles, and I’d like it if people just relax for a few minutes and, you know, enjoy it,” he says.
Over a Polish ceramic cup of a hand-brewed blend with strawberry and chocolate notes, Bawden chats about his cargo e-bike, his training sessions at clients’ homes, sold-out workshops, and plans for his own west-side facility, perhaps later this year, combining a roastery, café, and education space under one roof.
“Coffee is complex. Coffee is curious. There’s lots of different variables,” he rhapsodizes. Some aficionados go all-in on expensive gear and micromanage their brewing temperature, but he suggests prioritizing three key factors: “Good coffee beans, good water, and a good grinder.”
Curious Coffee, 100 S. Fourth Ave. (in Bløm Mead + Cider). Thurs. & Fri. 8 a.m.–3 p.m., Sat. 9 a.m.–2 p.m., Sun. 9 a.m.–noon. Closed Mon.–Wed.
curious-coffee.com
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