When Michael Schaetzel’s father, William, offered him an opportunity to start his own business on a piece of family-owned land just outside of Stull, a dog day care was the first consideration.

But although he liked dogs, Schaetzel said, he didn’t like them to the 24/7 tune such an undertaking would require. So what about coffee? It was another suggestion by the elder Schaetzel, thinking Lawrence had room for another cup.

Last month, Schaetzel passed the one-year anniversary of his first roast of Greenstone Coffee, which coincided with his father’s birthday and Earth Day.

“Our first month we were excited for every pound we sold,” Schaetzel said. “Now we try to do at least 100 pounds a week. We’re nowhere quite where we want to be but we’re definitely growing.”

Today, Greenstone’s green and white Gargoyle-adorned bags have appeared on the shelves at Hy-Vee, the Cottin’s Farmers’ Market and at several local coffee shops.

Schaetzel and Brandon Rose, who became Greenstone’s first employee about six months ago, work out of a 900-square-foot shed built on Schaetzel’s family property, where cattle still also graze and occasionally brush against the building. Later this year, Rose will marry Schaetzel’s sister, Jenny.

“We’ll officially be a family business,” Rose said.

Schaetzel grew up in Lawrence, graduating from Free State High School and later Kansas University after studying environmental science. He applies a scientific approach to coffee, drawing on workshops and conventions attended since beginning his venture. In the last year, Schaetzel traveled to coffee hotbeds like Seattle and attended classes in Idaho, the site of one of his first crash courses in coffee roasting.

“My world changed,” Schaetzel said of his trip to Idaho, where he also purchased the towering machine he uses to roast his beans.

Schaetzel eschews the idea of coffee “blends” — that is, mixing beans from multiple origins together and adding a creative name. Instead, he sources beans from places like Uganda, Ethiopia, Congo, Honduras, Bolivia and Costa Rica while preferring to do business with smaller farmers. Heavy, sealed plastic sacks keep the green, unroasted beans fresh inside his building, and each type of coffee arrives in burlap bags with unique designs produced at the farms from which the coffee was harvested.

Roasting days span about nine hours, Schaetzel says. The rich smell of the beans saturate the air and the roaster’s churning and whooshing drown out the Bob Marley and Led Zeppelin that had been playing on an iPod hooked to speakers.

Schaetzel positions his tall frame in a rolling chair, a log book in hand as he works a monitor hooked to the roaster. As the minutes pass, Schaetzel jots notes on temperatures, time and pressure as a small window shows the beans in revolution.

When ready, Schaetzel pulls down a lever releasing the beans into a cooling tray. They pour out like a waterfall, their steam a steady cloud hanging overhead. “You really get that roasted coffee smell now,” Schaetzel said.

The first year in business has felt more like three, Schaetzel said. And as he begins year two, the pace has only quickened. Late last month, Schaetzel was one of three presenters at a coffee event hosted by the Lawrence Public Library and Lawrence Magazine, which is owned by the same company that owns the Journal-World. His task was to condense information about growing conditions, importing coffee and roasting the beans into a 10-minute presentation. Just the night before, he roasted beans to be brewed at the event into the early-morning hours after returning from a weekend convention in Seattle.