A new local haunt for fresh coffee, a bite to eat and coffee education is open on the Purdue University campus in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Ghost Coffee Roaster recently opened its roastery cafe in a standalone black building in the shadows of Purdue’s Lambert Fieldhouse, boasting locally milled walnut counters, shelves and tabletops alongside modern tables and chairs. 

The shop was brought to life by owner and certified Q Grader Cory Brooks, who roasted for Lafayette-based Copper Moon Coffee for more than a decade prior to opening Ghost Coffee Roaster. Now, Brooks leads Ghost roasts onsite with a Diedrich IR-24 machine, while welcoming the opportunity to share his knowledge with the eager-to-learn college community. 

“A huge percentage of the people that are coming in are kids that are in a spot in their life where they’re curious, they are absorbing knowledge and they’re willing to engage with the information that I’m trying to share,” Brooks told Daily Coffee News. “That’s been very rewarding, especially coming from a background where I didn’t have a whole lot of customer interaction. Copper Moon was a closed factory environment, so this is really giving me a chance to kind of express the artistic side [of coffee] and make some of my favorite coffees for people who are also coffee enthusiasts.”

Roasting in 50-pound batches — a relatively intimate size given the previous 500-pound batches Brooks said he was dropping at Copper Moon — the seasoned coffee professional is attempting to balance high quality, traceability and supply chain equity in sourcing green coffee. Greens thus far have come primarily from Crop to Cup Coffee and Cafe Imports.

“I really have developed an understanding of how important it is not just for our coffee to be brought here, but for the lives of those people that are trying to survive in those places, that are processing the coffee to get it to us,” said Brooks. “Reputable [importers] that I know have good standing relationships with the [producers and farmers] that they’re importing coffee from are definitely important to me.”

Guests inside the 1,500-square-foot cafe can watch roasting take place, while enjoying hot brews alongside sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches, ham and cheese croissants, biscuits and gravy and other dishes made fresh in the on-site kitchen.

A Visacrem La Nera espresso machine is the workhorse for traditional espresso drinks, while a batch brewer is available for high-volume times such as Purdue game days or other campus events. During normal times, Brooks prefers to use Hario Switch manual brewers to better highlight the flavors in each cup.  

All Ghost coffees are offered as single-origin products, and grounds of each are placed inside Squeaky Hom fragrance presenters, allowing guests to sniff dry grounds before selecting coffees for single-origin espressos or pourovers. 

“They work so well for what I’m doing, trying to really identify the nuances between different roast levels, different origins, allowing people to check out the different coffees, see what they smell like, and then choose what they want,” said Brooks. “That’s been very fun. And I’m not up-charging for pourovers, either. They’re just getting pourovers at our standard cup price.”

With plenty of capacity in the IR-24, Brooks hopes to ramp up wholesale and launch an online store soon. He’s preparing a program of community events to keep people coming during the college town’s summer months. Open mics, date-night flights and food pairings and yoga on the lawn are potential plans to keep Ghost Coffee lively.

“Being on a college campus, there’s some ebbs and flows in the client base — most of the students are leaving,” said Brooks. “So this summer, I really want to connect to the communities that surround me and just try to enjoy the coffee and enjoy the nice weather that’s about to come.”

Ghost Coffee Roaster is located at 750 W Stadium Ave in West Lafayette. 

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