Meta Coffee Roasting Co.

Meta Coffee Roasting Co. is a small-batch, organic single-origin coffee roaster founded in 2015 by Zach Tarhini, operating a retail counter on Southwest Boulevard in Kansas City, Kansas, and supplying wholesale beans to other KC-area cafes including Garden House.

Description

Meta Coffee Roasting Co. is an independent coffee roaster founded in Kansas City in 2015 by Zach Tarhini, a Paola, Kansas native and 2011 University of Kansas graduate who learned to roast at The Roasterie in Kansas City before starting his own company.[1][2] Meta began as a one-man micro-roasting operation run out of a converted basement in Prairie Village, selling small-batch organic, single-origin coffee at the Brookside Farmers Market and to a handful of specialty grocers.[1][2]

In 2021, after six years without a storefront, Meta opened its first physical retail counter inside Foxtrot Studio, a leather-goods design shop owned by Jordan Fox at 1639 Southwest Blvd in the Rosedale neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas.[3][4] The shared space — described at the time as functioning as “a retail space, a workspace and a location where guests can enjoy the owner’s curated selection of coffee” — gave Meta a small (roughly 6–8 seat) tasting-room presence for the first time.[4][6] That same corner building has since also become home to Garden House Café, a separate botanical café/plant shop concept also tied to Jordan Fox; Garden House does not roast its own coffee and sources its beans wholesale from Meta.[7]

Meta’s model centers on a small, rotating selection (typically two to three) of certified-organic, single-origin coffees, evaluated and roasted individually for each lot’s own acidity, body, and depth rather than to a fixed house profile.[1][2] Besides its own counter, Meta has supplied beans to other Kansas City-area accounts, including The Merc (Lawrence), Nature’s Own Health Market (Kansas City, Missouri), and, per its own site, One More Cup café in Waldo.[2][5]

Ownership and history

Zach Tarhini, a Paola, Kansas native, graduated from the University of Kansas in 2011 and worked in coffee roasting at The Roasterie in Kansas City before founding Meta Coffee Roasting Company in June 2015.[1][2] He began by roasting on a 1kg electric drum roaster in his Prairie Village basement, sourcing green beans through importers such as Midwest Coffee Trading and Zephyr Green Coffee Importers to keep relationships personal and shipping costs low.[1] Early sales were seasonal (Brookside Farmers Market on Saturdays) and wholesale (The Merc in Lawrence, Nature’s Own Health Market in Kansas City, Missouri).[1][2]

Meta operated without a storefront of its own for its first six years. In July 2021, it opened a retail counter inside Foxtrot Studio, owner Jordan Fox’s rebranded leather-goods shop at 1639 Southwest Blvd in KCK’s Rosedale neighborhood — Meta’s first brick-and-mortar presence.[3][4] That same building corner later became the address of Garden House Café, which sources its coffee wholesale from Meta rather than roasting in-house.[7]

Period	Operator
2015 → present	Zach Tarhini (founder)

Tier classification

Tier 1 (provisional). Meta is an independent, founder-operated roaster with no chain or corporate parent, continuously run by its original founder for 11 years (2015–2026), who trained locally (The Roasterie), built the company from a home basement, and has stayed personally involved throughout — the profile Tier 1 is meant to capture. Founder Zach Tarhini is from Paola, Kansas (a small town roughly 50 miles south of Kansas City, generally considered part of the greater KC region rather than the urban core) rather than Kansas City proper; per the vault’s tiering doctrine this is not treated as a downgrade trigger since his adult life, education, and entire 11-year business history are rooted in the KC metro itself (KU, The Roasterie, Prairie Village, KCK).

Menu

Last verified: 2026-07-26 · Source: Meta Coffee Roasting Co. official site (/buy) · URL: https://www.metacoffeekc.com/buy · Confidence: Medium (live product/pricing page, but no full historical menu archive)

Meta’s offering is a small, rotating slate of single-origin coffees sold by the bag, plus historically a seasonal cold-brew/iced-coffee program at farmers-market appearances.

Coffee (as listed for sale, accessed 2026-07-26)

• Direct Trade Costa Rica — from $9.75[9]
• Organic Honduras Pacavita — from $9.00[9]
• Organic Brazil Fazenda Bosco — from $9.75[9]
• Past rotating single origins have included Ethiopia and Guatemala lots (e.g., an “Organic Guatemala ADISQUE” reviewed in 2015).[10]

Other

• Signature iced coffee — cream and brown-sugar simple syrup, a Brookside Farmers Market staple in warmer months.[2][11]
• Single-origin cold brew — also served seasonally at the farmers market.[2][11]

Links

• Website: https://www.metacoffeekc.com (see security note above before linking live)
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/metacoffeekc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/metacoffeekc/

See also

• garden-house-coffee
• kansas-city-kansas
• the-roasterie
• oddly-correct-coffee
• blip-coffee-roasters
• crows-coffee

Sources

1. Daily Coffee News — “Kansas City’s Newest Coffee Roaster is So Meta” — https://dailycoffeenews.com/2015/08/11/kansas-citys-newest-coffee-roaster-is-so-meta/ — accessed 2026-07-26
2. Kansan (University of Kansas student newspaper) — “KU alumnus turns home basement into coffee roasting facility to sell in Kansas and Missouri” — https://www.kansan.com/arts_and_culture/ku-alumnus-turns-home-basement-into-coffee-roasting-facility-to-sell-in-kansas-and-missouri/article_13b83f1c-c9fa-11e5-942a-7be35e0a16c3.html — accessed 2026-07-26
3. Feast Magazine — “With a new brick-and-mortar location, Meta Coffee Roasting Co. brings craft coffee to KCK’s Rosedale neighborhood” — https://www.feastmagazine.com/travel/kansas-city/with-a-new-brick-and-mortar-location-meta-coffee-roasting-co-brings-craft-coffee-to/article_7c43c1ce-e4dd-11eb-8a1a-3bf674d88ecd.html — accessed 2026-07-26 (page rate-limited on direct fetch; details via search summary of this exact article)
4. Startland News — “Sneak peek: Foxtrot Studio rebrands, reopening in KCK with more space and a caffeinated twist” — https://startlandnews.com/2021/06/sneak-peek-foxtrot-studio/ — accessed 2026-07-26
5. Yelp — Meta Coffee Roasting Co., 1639 Southwest Blvd — https://www.yelp.com/biz/meta-coffee-roasting-co-kansas-city — accessed 2026-07-26 (direct fetch blocked/403; hours, photo/review counts, and “Top 10” list placement via search summary of this listing)
6. Startland News — Foxtrot Studio / Meta Coffee Roasting Co. photo feature (building described as shared workspace/retail space for Foxtrot Studio + Meta Coffee) — https://www.startlandnews.com/2021/06/sneak-peek-foxtrot-studio/zach-tarhini-meta-coffee-roasting-co-jordan-fox-foxtrot-studio/ — accessed 2026-07-26
7. Garden House Registry page (this vault) — sourcing Meta Coffee Roasting Co. as Garden House’s bean supplier, per KCUR (Up to Date) and joe.coffee — https://www.kcur.org/podcast/up-to-date/2024-04-13/food-recs-kansas-citys-best-coffee-shops-and-cafes; https://joe.coffee/locations/ks/kansas-city/garden-house-cafe-kansas-city/ — see garden-house-coffee
8. Yelp search — “TOP 10 BEST Coffee Roasteries in Kansas City, KS - Updated 2026” (Meta Coffee Roasting Co. listed) — https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Coffee+Roasteries&find_loc=Kansas+City,+KS — accessed 2026-07-26
9. Meta Coffee Roasting Co. official site — Buy page (current bean listings/pricing) — https://www.metacoffeekc.com/buy — accessed 2026-07-26
10. KC Coffee Geek — “Meta Coffee Roasting Co. Organic Guatemala ADISQUE” — https://www.kccoffeegeek.com/2015/09/25/meta-coffee-roasting-co-organic-guatemala-adisque/ — accessed 2026-07-26 (title/origin only; full review text not independently fetched)
11. Meta Coffee Roasting Co. official site — About page (rotating single origins, Brookside Farmers Market presence, One More Cup café Waldo wholesale account) — https://www.metacoffeekc.com/about — accessed 2026-07-26

Verification

Drafted 2026-07-26 from web research; 11 sources. Founding (June 2015), founder (Zach Tarhini, Paola KS native, KU 2011, ex-Roasterie), home-basement origin (Prairie Village), and 2021 Foxtrot Studio brick-and-mortar debut are corroborated across Daily Coffee News, Kansan, Feast Magazine, and Startland News — four independent outlets across two different eras of the business. Current 2026 operating status supported by a live, priced /buy page and a current-year (“Updated 2026”) Yelp “Top 10” listing placement.

(2) Meta’s retail counter and Garden House Café both list the same 1639 Southwest Blvd address; the exact current physical/business relationship between the two concepts in that building is not pinned down by any single source. (3) Phone number not found. (4) Tarhini’s current city of residence not confirmed (hometown Paola, KS; business built and run in the KC metro since 2015).