ECWx Notebook: Small is Beautiful
It’s been more than 18 months since I published this account of our inaugural ECWx event: ECWx 2018 Colombia. At the time, the memory of […]
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ECWx Notebook: Small is Beautiful
It’s been more than 18 months since I published this account of our inaugural ECWx event: ECWx 2018 Colombia. At the time, the memory of […]
Finca Chelín’s 22 Flavors
In the early 1950s, the ice cream parlor chain Baskin-Robbins unveiled a new slogan. Its iconic “31 flavors” tagline reflected its commitment to a menu so […]
Los Delirios Labor Diaries
Our current Nicaragua Flor Azul lot comes from Milton Canales and the Los Monos section of his family’s Los Delirios farm. It was shade-grown and […]
Our collective blind spot
Intelligentsia’s Chicago Roasting Works is located in a light industry area a few miles west of the Loop, the center of the city’s financial and […]
ECW 2018: Bolivia
As 2018 draws to a close, we look back at an Intelligentsia milestone: our 10th annual Extraordinary Coffee Workshop, held September 6-13 in Bolivia.
ECWx | The Big Idea
Before joining the team at Intelligentsia in 2016, I spent 14 years working for an international development agency. A long-time collaborator in that work with […]
ECWx in Pictures
Intelligentsia partnered with Root Capital last month to adapt our Extraordinary Coffee Workshop for a new context and format we call ECWx. We convened the first […]
Being there
The core principles and standard practices of our Direct Trade program contribute to the resilience of our supply chain partners by insulating them from risk. […]
ECW: What’s risk got to do with it?
Once a year, we convene all our Direct Trade partners from around the world — more than 50 growers and representatives of farmer associations, washing […]
Busting the microlot myth
The idea that Direct Trade is all about microlots is pervasive. And persistent. And, at least in our case, dead wrong. Michaele Weissman wrote the […]
Escaping the commodity trap
From the day we opened the doors at our original location on Broadway in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood back in 1995, our business has been built […]
The signal and the noise
Arguably the most important principle of our Direct Trade model is the one implied in the name: a commitment to direct engagement with the farmers […]