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 vast, customers could order a different flavor every day for an entire month. The Baskin-Robbins vision was ahead of its time, and prefigured…
Today we celebrate the inaugural releases of two single-origin coffees: our Port of Mokha Al-Jabal Yemen Special Selection and our Flor de Março Brazil Limited Release. The coffees come from origins that could not be less alike. But they have three things in common. They are…
From James McLaughlin, Intelligentsia President and Green Coffee Buyer for Brazil: Meaningful collaboration between a coffee farmer and a coffee roaster is still a relatively new concept. Farmers have spent years—sometimes generations—developing farming and post-harvest practices that reflect the climate, geography and traditions of the…
From our Green Coffee Buyer for Burundi J Mlodzinski: Kirundi is the official language of Burundi, and Abagore is Kirundi for women. Why Abagore? Because this coffee was grown largely by women. They are part of a farmer association led by women. That association participates…
SHOW YOUR COMMITMENT Zirikana is Kinyarwanda for “show your commitment.” We can’t think of a better name for our annual single-origin offering from Rwanda. After all, commitment is what this whole specialty coffee thing is all about, and Rwanda’s coffee sector offers more inspiring examples…
It hardly seems possible that we first tasted coffee from Nshimiyimana Gaspard just three seasons ago. He has become such an integral part of our Rwanda sourcing program, and looms so large in our imagination of what coffee can be, that it seems he has…
From our Green Coffee Buyer for Rwanda J Mlodzinski: Kinyarwanda is the official language of Rwanda, and Imena is Kinyarwanda for hero. Our Zirikana Imena Rwanda is a new Intelligentsia offering that marks the beginning of an exciting new phase in our Direct Trade relationship…
From our Green Coffee Buyer for Burundi J Mlodzinski: Ramadhan Salum has been an Intelligentsia Direct Trade partner for the past three years. He owns and operates Kayanza Premium Coffee (KPC), a quality-focused coffee company whose growth has helped to drive the emergence of Burundi’s…
Our Llano Redondo Colombia COE #4 Special Selection is the third and final winning CoE lot we will release for 2017, capping a short run of extraordinary single-farm lots that mark our reengagement with a competition platform that has played a vital role in the…
From our Vice President of Coffee and Green Coffee Buyer for Colombia Geoff Watts: There’s a place A short drive up the winding road outside the small mountain town of Buesaco in Nariño lies is a small family farm called La Mina. At first glance,…
From our Green Coffee Buyer for Peru Jay Cunningham: Most of the truly great coffee in Peru has been blended into obscurity. There, coffee is mostly collected from thousands of growers and bulked into large, homogenized lots that dilute the quality of dozens or perhaps…
The Cup of Excellence (CoE) is the world’s most rigorous and prestigious coffee quality competition. With events in 10 different coffee-growing countries and an internet auction that exports winning lots to every major consuming market in the world, it is the only truly international coffee…