Intelligentsia Coffee No. 1 AD LUCEM by Intelligentsia Coffee

ECW IS A MOVEABLE FEAST

that takes place in a different location every year. So far, it has traveled to seven different countries on three continents. ECW participants explore the event’s host countries to better understand the unique contributions each one makes to global coffee culture. The engagement with local traditions and tastemakers is a pillar of ECW, but the focus of our cultural exploration varies from year to year. Most ECW events have been held in coffee-growing countries and have focused on production and post-harvest processing. ECW 2017, by contrast, found insight and inspiration in engagement with leaders from three sectors that make San Francisco a worldclass city: technology, wine and food.

And of course, ECW is always a celebration of coffee. The event gives us the privilege of preparing and serving the coffees we source and roast to the farmers and millers who grow and process and export them. It also affords us the opportunity to discuss the finer points of coffee quality and conduct joint sensory exercises with everyone in our Direct Trade supply chain network. This year, for the first time ever, we created a competitive framework for ECW’s sensory program: the Intelligentsia Extraordinary Coffee Competition.

“IF YOU ARE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE LIVED IN PARIS AS A YOUNG MAN, THEN WHEREVER YOU GO FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, IT STAYS WITH YOU, FOR PARIS IS A MOVEABLE FEAST.” - ERNEST HEMINGWAY

CONTENT TABLE OF

WELCOME

3 AXIOMA 4 TECHNOLOGY 6 WINE 10 FOOD 22 COFFEE 34 PARTICIPANT 46MAP

WELCOME

So what is this ECW thing? The idea for the Extraordinary Coffee Workshop began to crystallize in 2008, after nearly five years of non-stop travel around the planet to visit coffee farms, talk with producers and better understand the sources of coffee quality. All that travel gave me exposure to many different coffee cultures, traditions, protocols and innovations. All those years of dialogue with growers gave me the ability to compare and contrast approaches to farm management and post-harvest processing in just about every place coffee is grown. But what struck me most of all was how much quality growers were leaving on the table because of missing knowledge or a lack of motivation. So ECW began as a forum for exchanging knowledge, illuminating a pathway to improved coffee quality and inspiring growers. In 2009, we invited all the farmers we were working with around the world to come to Colombia and learn together. What we did not know as we gathered in Cauca for that first ECW was that we had started something extraordinary that would have a profound impact on everyone who has been a part of it.

Each year we bring the entire group of farmers, millers and exporters in our Direct Trade network to a different country to experience first-hand the meaningful details of coffee production. By immersing ourselves for a few days in the culture, landscape, technologies and traditions that inform coffee production in each place, we see and feel things that give us a type of understanding we could not get any other way. One year we traveled to Brazil to learn about experimental pruning techniques, the use of highefficiency sorting technology and advanced drying methods. The next year we moved to Ethiopia to see how coffee is grown and handled in the place where it was born, experience real coffee diversity and witness the profound reverence for coffee that exists in its homeland. Later, we moved the whole affair to Costa Rica to study its coffee sector’s impressive approach to sustainable agriculture and farmer empowerment. At each of these stops, we soak up and give back as much as we can through open exchanges about coffee quality with local producers, scientists and agronomists. At our ninth annual ECW in San Francisco in 2017, our effort to elevate the local meant focusing on wine, technology and food, in addition to coffee, of course. ECW has become an institution and an essential component of our Direct Trade model. It is an annual gathering of accomplished coffee growers from all over the globe who share a relentless drive to do things better and a conviction that life is better when it is full of quality—two beliefs that were instrumental in helping them become accomplished growers in the first place. ECW is a place where we all come to gain practical insight, find inspiration from the world around us, learn from each other and share our latest discoveries. It is a breeding ground for new ideas and a giant battery that renews our enthusiasm for pushing coffee quality to ever-greater heights. After nine ECW experiences, I can say with some confidence that it is more than just an event. ECW is a community. A global network. An academic coffee conference. An exploration of world culture with a dose of adventure travel. A tangible manifestation of the core values of our Direct Trade model. A beacon that sends a clear message about the importance of quality. A means for challenging ourselves—an annual reminder that despite the progress we’ve all made, there is far more yet to be done. Most of all, ECW is a family that holds an annual reunion to celebrate our shared passion for coffee quality, examine ways we can improve our craft and motivate each other to keep innovating. In 2018 we’ll be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the ECW, and are already giddy with anticipation. G E O F F WAT T S

VICE PRESIDENT OF COFFEE

INTELLIGENTSIA DIRECT TRADE BY THE NUMBERS

2017 ECW EDITION Countries represented: 14 Direct Trade partners represented: 25 Years of Direct Trade relationships: 101 Years of coffee experience: 760 Cup of Excellence awards won by participants: 63 Highest price per pound earned at COE auction, in dollars: 120 Highest price per pound earned at private auction, in dollars: 85 Highest farm represented, in meters above sea level: 2,500 Workers employed at farms and mills of partners who participated: 6,289

EXTRAORDINARY COFFEE COMPETITION Origins represented: 13 Coffees entered: 59 Cupping results generated: 768 Best in Show Award winners: 1 Awards taken home by Best in Show Award winner: 7 Number of briefcases used to transport green coffee for finals: 1 Number of handcuffs used to secure that briefcase to wrist: 1

TECHNOL O n Te c h Tu e s d a y , E C W 2 0 1 7 welcomed three guest speakers whose technological innovations are poised to reshape the coffee trade.

IKAWA Business Development Manager for the United States O.M. Miles, Cropster Founder and CEO Norbert Niederhauser and Cafe X Founder and CEO Henry Hu told the origin stories of their respective companies, and demonstrated how their technologies are accelerating the evolution of the specialty coffee supply chain: an electric sample roaster whose infinitely customizable and endlessly repeatable roast profiles are managed from a smartphone app, a web-based end-to-end supply chain data management platform that emerged from a research project to become an industry standard for specialty coffee in less than 10 years and a robotic cafĂŠ kiosk whose precision extraction, consistency and efficiency represent a bid to evolve the role of service in the coffeebar.

O.M. Miles (left) introduces IKAWAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s roasting hardware with assistance from Mariana Iturralde of Finca Takesi, Bolivia.

LOGY Norbert Niederhauser expounds the benefits of Cropster and data transparency.

Patrick Murray (Finca Majahual, left) and Epe Ă lvarez (Finca Malacara) of El Salvador score the finalists in the Extraordinary Coffee Competition using the Cropster Cup app.

Henry Hu shares his vision of coffee’s automated future.

“Beep, boop. Here’s your coffee.”

In the afternoon, we put the entire event on wheels for a field trip to the flagship U.S. location of Cafe X for a celebration of Intelligentsia Week: all the coffees on its four-item espresso-only menu were Intelligentsia offerings.

The robot barista at Cafe X served coffees we sourced and roasted to the farmers who grew them and millers who processed them.

The wine menu for ECW San Francisco was carefully curated to represent the full diversity of flavor in Northern Californiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vibrant wine culture. But our exploration of California viticulture and enology went well beyond a killer wine list: we brought our Direct Trade network together with some of the most celebrated winemakers

in California to interact directly with tastemakers who share a commitment to extraordinary quality but take very different paths to flavor.

During the opening day of the event, we partnered with Living Wines Collective for a guided tasting and an introduction to the growing natural wine movement, a terroir-driven approach that intentionally limits agronomic intervention and post-harvest controls. Natural wines favor the fantastic variability of flavors produced by natural processes allowed to run their course to the consistency achieved through active manipulation of every variable. Shaunt Oungoulian (left) and Diego Roig of the Living Wines Collective lay down the natural wine vision during a guided tasting to open ECW 9.

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PRODUCERS

FABI O CABALLERO Finca La Tina HONDURAS

Intelligentsia Direct Trade partner since: 2003 Cup of Excellence Awards: 2 Years in coffee: 47

Question: What was your favorite part of ECW 2017? Answer: That is one of the hardest questions to answer! Every one of the places we have visited over the years for ECW has its own unique charm, and if I had the chance to visit every one again, I would do it in a second!

On Wine Wednesday, we flipped the script and spent the day at Opus One, which has built a reputation as one world’s premier vineyards precisely because it deploys advanced technology and leverages the insights gained through scientific inquiry at every turn to optimize flavor.

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PRODUCERS

FURAHA UMWIZEYE

Founder of Kivubelt Coffee RWANDA Intelligentsia Direct Trade partner since: 2015 Cup of Excellence Awards: 2 Years in coffee: 8

“ECW means getting the chance to meet great people who share a passion for super, super highquality coffee and bond around it. I often get a sense during the ECW week that we are searching together for the Holy Grail of coffee quality. And because of that, every year I learn something new that helps improve the quality of the coffee that Kivubelt produces. It is very motivating.”

ECW participants learned why Opus One is one of the world’s most celebrated winemakers. Its precision agriculture is driven by advanced data analytics, and its quality-control operations are meticulous beyond compare in everything from the wild-harvested local yeasts used in the fermentation process to the blend of human and artificial intelligence it uses to assess its corks.

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PRODUCERS

M A R I A N A I T U R R A L DE

Finca Takesi BOLIVIA

Intelligentsia Direct Trade partner since: 2012 Cup of Excellence Awards: 1 Years in coffee: 7

“For the Takesi team, ECW is the most important event of the year. Getting to meet other producers from around the world who share your passion for coffee, getting feedback from roasters, baristas and consumers gives you the energy to want to keep on going and do it better, and reuniting with our extended coffee family every year—those things are all priceless. And Opus One was mind-blowing. I was impressed by how similar an extraordinary winemaking operation is to our approach to coffee production.”

FOO

Like the wine menu for ECW 2017, our food menu was also carefully curated by the Intelligentsia team. We wanted to celebrate restaurants that share our obsession with flavor, seasonality, quality and direct sourcing relationships. To sample the diversity of San Franciscoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s effervescent culinary scene. And to deliver the taste of place that plays a central role in every ECW. Our menu was built around local markets and bakers, restaurants and sandwich-makers, but we made an exception to the relentless focus on local sourcing and gastronomy for some snacks we imported to highlight collaborations that feature Intelligentsia Direct Trade coffees in non-coffee formats: Askinosie Chocolate bars and Jeniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ice Cream.

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BREAKFAST Mr. Holmes Bakery

LUNCH Bicycle Banh Mi (Vietnamese) D’Maize (Salvadoran) Fin-Finé (Ethiopian) Maité (Colombian) Yountville Deli

BITES Askinosie Chocolate Bi-Rite Market Jeni’s Ice Cream

DINNER Cala Kinkhao Liholiho Yacht Club Oenotri Tartine Manufactory Tawla The Progress Uma Casa

FAREWELL DINNER While the food served during ECW was exceptional across the board, the farewell dinner at Tartine Manufactory was transcendent. It was designed as a culmination of the week, and it did not disappoint. Every course in Tartineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ECW pairing menu was intentionally sourced, artfully prepared and explosively flavorful. And the incorporation of our Direct Trade coffees was executed flawlessly, from the Manyeki Soda (Kenya) served during pre-dinner cocktails to the La Tortuga Ice Cream Sandwiches (Honduras) rolled out for dessert, and everything in between.

MARY MAINA MANYEKI

is a smallholder farmer in Kenya, a coffee origin where sourcing single-farm lots from smallholder farmers is a trying affair. We met Mary three seasons ago thanks to a Direct Trade partner working deliberately to subvert the dominant paradigm and link individual growers focused on quality with roasters like us. Prior to that, Mary had never met a U.S. coffee roaster. Less than three years later, she was standing in one of America’s most celebrated restaurants, drinking a soda named after her. It was a highlight of the evening and representative of the loftiest aspirations of our Direct Trade model to elevate coffee and uplift our Direct Trade partners.

M ANYEKI S ODA

FROM CAITLIN KOETHER, TARTINE’S FERMENTATION SPECIALIST

Kefir grains are a symbiotic colony of yeast and bacteria (SCOBY) used as a mother to populate a base liquid with live, active good bacteria. We used the kefir grains to ferment a base soda and then added different juices and infusions to match the notes of the coffee. These can be purchased online through places like Amazon or through a community that exchanges grains since they are live and active and do grow!

THE SODA BASE (PART 1)

FLAVORING THE SODA (PART 2)

ON FERMENTATION

2 c room temperature filtered water 1/2 c organic sugar 2 T molasses 1/4 c water kefir grains

2 c fermented water kefir soda base 1/2 c pineapple juice 1/8 c hibiscus tea 1/8 c currant juice 3 T lime juice

Open the plastic bottle twice a day in what we call “burping” to allow any excess carbon dioxide to escape and gauge the fermentation activity. Be careful because as it becomes more active, it does become explosive! Before drinking, or if you find the soda becomes too active, place the bottle in the fridge. This makes the bacteria sluggish and calms down activity, making it more manageable to open. Drink and enjoy! This beverage can be held in the fridge for up to a month.

Combine the sugar and water until it is dissolved and add the kefir grains. Let sit in a closed container at room temperature for three days, allowing the fermentation to begin.

Strain soda base from grains after 3 days & place grains into a new solution of water and sugar. Grains can be held in the fridge in the solution to lay dormant when not in use. When ready to use again, strain off the sugar water (you can discard this), start a new solution of sugar water and place the grains in the new solution for a fresh fermentation to begin.

Combine all together. At this point you can drink it as is or you can bottle it (plastic bottle highly recommended to allow expansion) and create a secondary fermentation, turning the sugars into carbon dioxide and therefore lightly carbonating it. Fermentation can occur anywhere from one day to ten days, depending on environment and personal preference for taste. You can also add more or less sugar and lime juice as you like.

Other notes: If you can’t find hibiscus tea premade, you can buy a dried tea base and steep it as the directions say. The currant juice we used is from frozen currants from one of our purveyors. If you can’t find any currant juice, you can use blueberry juice or concentrate.

Mary Maina Manyeki (left) meets Caitlin Koether, the Tartine Manufactory sous chef and fermentation specialist who created the Manyeki Soda to evoke the flavors in Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coffee.

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PRODUCERS

MICHAEL ADINEW

Chief Development Officer METAD ETHIOPIA Intelligentsia Direct Trade partner since: 2010 Good Food Awards: 5

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I have been honored to be part of every ECW since the event in Los Angeles in 2011. ECW brings together in one room all the coffee professionals Intelligentsia works with from around the world, and we all keep learning new and better practices each and every year. It is a mini coffee university that Intelligentsia created where all of us learn from each other and all of us grow at the same time. What a great vision and what a great program!â&#x20AC;?

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PRODUCERS

MOKHTAR ALKHANSHALI

Founder and CEO Port of Mokha YEMEN

“I felt honored to be among so many amazingly passionate and skilled coffee producers. The exchange of knowledge and experience was really impactful, and to see the Intelligentsia family all together like that was utterly beautiful. It was a really transformative week.”

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PRODUCERS

LUIZ PAULO FILHO

Director Carmo Coffees BRAZIL Intelligentsia Direct Trade partner since: 2012 Years in Coffee: 12

“ECW is so important for us. Every year we meet with leading coffee producers from different countries and exchange information about coffee and quality, and every year we use that information to make a lot of improvements at our farm. ECW is helping usher in a new era of specialty coffee around the world!”

CO 34

OFFEE 35

THE INTELLIGENTSIA EXTRAORDINARY COFFEE COMPETITION

In advance of ECW 2017, we invited all our Direct Trade partners to send us just two kilos of the very best coffee they could produce. We put every submission we received up against every one of the singleorigin coffees already in our inventory. The end result was a coffee battle royale: nearly 60 coffees from 13 countries in the ring, all competing for the title Best in Show.

The action progressed through multiple rounds, with competitors gradually eliminated along the way. The opening round took place at the cupping lab in our Chicago Roasting Works with a core Quality Control team that evaluated every sample using the Intelligentsia cupping form and narrowed the field of nearly 60 entries based on overall score to 10 finalists that would advance to ECW. Samples of each of those 10 coffees were transported to San Francisco in a locked briefcase handcuffed to the wrist of our Vice President of Coffee Geoff Watts. For real.

The panel for the finals consisted of our entire Direct Trade supply chain: growers, millers, exporters, importers, green coffee buyers, roasters and baristas. In keeping with the eventâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s focus on technology, the finals were scored on smartphones using the Cropster Cup app and a customized form specifically developed for the event by our friends at Cropster. That form included just four categories: sweetness, acidity, clarity and overall score. These subcategories were selected as a calibration exercise and part of the broader joint sensory exploration we do each year at ECW with our partners. Since sweetness, acidity, clarity and overall score are the categories that we rely on most as we evaluate coffees for purchase, we wanted to underscore the relationship between these specific categories and our perception of overall quality. The results of that exercise were unambiguous: the coffee that had the highest overall score also had the highest score in each of these subcategories.

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PRODUCERS

M A U R I C I O R OSA LES Finca La Maravilla GUATEMALA

Intelligentsia Direct Trade partner since: 2003 Cup of Excellence Awards: 4 Years in coffee: 20

â&#x20AC;&#x153;At ECW 2017 in San Francisco, we drank worldclass coffees with pleasing aromas, delicious flavors and pronounced sweetness, acidity and body. The exploration of technology was brilliant and the wines were exquisite. But most of all the event left me with unforgettable memories and a lasting impression of the warmth of our relationships.â&#x20AC;?

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PRODUCERS

E P E Á LVA R E Z Finca Malacara EL SALVADOR

Intelligentsia Direct Trade partner since: 2003 Cup of Excellence Awards: 4 Years in coffee: 15

“This year we had the great pleasure of visiting San Francisco, enjoying its gastronomy and tasting delicious wines in Napa Valley. The technology presentations were thought-provoking and challenged us to bring similar innovations to our work in coffee. But the most memorable part of ECW was cupping the best coffees everyone had to offer. We realized how high the bar is for quality, and understand it is getting continuously higher. We have a lot of work to do!”

BEST OF SOUTH AMERICA

BEST OF SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

Cielo y Nilson Lรณpez Fincal El Gallineral, Colombia honey Geisha

Mariana and Carlos Iturralde Finca Takesi, Bolivia washed Geisha

BEST OF NORTH AMERICA

BEST SMALLHOLDER COFFEE

Claris Monge Finca Alto Estrella, Costa Rica honey Geisha

Mary Maina Manyeki Manyeki Estates, Kenya washed SL-28, SL-34

BEST IN INVENTORY

New Ngariama FCS Kainamui, Kenya SL-28, SL-34, Riuru 11, Batain

BEST OF AFRICA