La Esmeralda

Botz is a small Indiana roaster with a genuinely charming origin story. Founder Danny Falloon — 'Botz' is his childhood nickname, short for 'brother' in Serbian — chased a coffee obsession all the way to a training program at CoRo in Berkeley and a roasting job at JBC in Wisconsin, then came home to the Munster/Whiting area to start his own thing in early 2020. The approach is playful: ethically sourced beans roasted in small batches into creative takes on familiar, nostalgic flavours, all under a video-game-inspired robot logo. A fun, personal pick if you like your specialty coffee approachable and a little bit geeky.