Student Café Chronicles: Maha Coffee Roasters

Just outside the main drag of Coeur d’Alene coffee shops, three and a half miles from campus in a residential section of town, lies Maha Coffee Roasters. 

Maha opened in October of 2024 and specializes in house-roasted coffee beverages. The shop receives its hand-grown coffee beans from countries including Guatemala, Columbia, and Brazil and roasts them on-site. The café also offers baked goods from the local business The Sourdough Entrepreneur. 

Coffee enthusiasts who wish to replicate the hand-roasted coffee experience at home can pick up a 12oz bag of beans in-store or purchase them online and have the coffee shipped directly to their home.

For interested NIC students, Maha offers amenities like:

• Free and fast wifi
• Varied seating options (small tables and couch seating)
• Easy parking/Quiet location

As of now Maha does not have a discount for NIC students but does offer a 10% discount to military members and veterans.

Customers can leave their mark on the place with a sticker on the shop’s sticker wall or contribute to a game of chess with the café’s owner, Mason Garner.

“The games normally take a couple days,” Garner said, “and I’ve only been beat once.”

In the end, Garner said, the café’s goal is to form a community around good coffee. 

“I’m passionate about coffee and I’m passionate about community,” Garner explains. “I wanted to create a place that brings all kinds of people together, white collar and blue collar, and have everybody bond over coffee.”