Blue Max Coffee Upgrades Coffee Selection, Now Roasting Some of World’s Finest Beans

Blue Max Coffee, a full-service restaurant and coffee roaster in Forest Park, has announced it has upgraded its selection of fine coffee beans and is now offering two new premium specialty roasts per month.

“We’re upping our game,” said Terry Griffin, owner of Blue Max Coffee. “We’re continuously on a quest to enhance the coffee drinking and the dining experience here at Blue Max. Our customers are coffee aficionados who appreciate us bringing new flavor profiles to them. We’re excited to work with these excellent beans and will to continue to seek out the best roasts we can offer.”

Blue Max Coffee will offer two specialty roasts per month. For the month of February, new premium roasts are Rwanda beans from the Dukunde Kawa Cooperative and Nicaragua beans from a microlot on Los Congos Farm. Specialty beans are $18/pound.

“One thing we are really emphasizing is focusing on the notes in the coffee rather than whether it’s a light roast or a dark roast,” said Griffin. “If you limit yourself to only drinking light roasts, you may never open yourself up to trying a dark roast and you will be missing out, and vice versa. We’re getting away from classifying our beans as light and dark. We want people to try everything and taste the notes and not pass up a chance to realize you really like something.”

Blue Max offers customers a number of ways to save, one being reduced price Tuesdays when specialty beans are only $15/pound and all other beans are only $11/pound. Blue Max also offers “Ten for Ten” punch cards for food and coffee purchases.

Blue Max roasts its coffee beans in-house on a Probat roaster, and the roasts are used to make a selection of drip coffees each day as well as espresso drinks. The specialty roasts will be available as drip coffee selections on weekends.

“We’re also now using the specialty beans when we make our espresso drinks, which means those drinks are even better now as well,” said Griffin. “They are smoother and richer. We encourage customers to come in and experience the difference.”

Current popular cold-weather coffee drinks made from the roasts include the Snowball Latte, Fireside Mocha and the Peanut Butter Cup Mocha.

Blue Max Coffee follows the world harvest and maintains a full selection of new-crop beans, sourcing organic, fair-trade coffee whenever possible.

In addition to roasting its own beans and creating specialty coffee drinks, Blue Max also offers full-service breakfast and lunch menus as well as brunch on weekends. “It’s very unusual for a coffee roaster to also have a full-service café like we do, and we pride ourselves on all that we offer including coffee roasted in-house, our great latte drinks and our made-from-scratch menu items,” said Griffin.

Blue Max Coffee is located at 26 Lathrop Ave. in Forest Park. It is open from 6:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Kitchen closes daily at 2 p.m.

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About Blue Max Coffee

In 2008, Terry Griffin, an ex-trader for the Chicago Board of Trade, purchased Blue Max Coffee, pursuing his passion for the art of coffee roasting and developing innovative drinks. Blue Max is now one of the finest roasters in Chicago. The café offers a variety of coffee roasts and a host of creative coffee drinks as well as specialty drinks featuring fresh-squeezed juices. Everything on the menu is homemade, including frittatas, pancakes and pastries for breakfast and fresh wraps, soups, salads and burgers for lunch. Blue Max offers free WiFi and a unique telecommuting workspace on the second floor. Call (708) 366-9224 or visit www.bluemax.me for more information.