Sunday morning began with breakfast at our Silverlake store. It was early enough that most of our regulars were still crawling out of bed, but for the few who did make it down – they shared coffee with our producers. We opened this store just over four years ago,in which time its become a kind of iconic symbol for us. People love this store, and for many different reasons. Bringing our producers to the space felt significant and long overdue.Once everyone had finished taking photos and buying more brewers and t shirts, we piled back onto the buses and made our way back to the works. Everyone sat outside as we brought out tasters of the different brews from the roasting competition the day previous. Everyone remarked how different coffees could taste via different roast profiles, and yet one wasn’t necessarily better than the other. The exercise revealed that a coffee’s quality can be presented or interpreted in different ways, but also focused on the necessity of a quality raw ingredient if you wanted to achieve a quality brew or roast.

Next up was lunch, kindly sponsored by Mahlkoenig. Few brands have such an established connection to their area of expertise like Mahlkoenig. Their Guatemala grinder is our lab grinder of choice. They were just announced as the official WCE grinder sponsor for the next three years, and we were so grateful to have them return this year as a sponsor of ECW.

We were then treated to a talk by Alfonso Penagos about his company’s depulping machines. We’ve talked a lot about the machinery we use to ensure quality, but what about the equipment producers use? This year we were delighted to welcome Penagos as a sponsor, a company who builds efficient de-pulpers that use considerably less water than more traditional methods. We’ve worked with some producers to help install Penagos machines, and even purchased the equipment in some cases. It was fascinating to see how rapt the producers in attendance were, especially those who were not familiar with the machines.

Then came the Direct Trade Stakeholder Talk. In many ways, this was one of the principle reasons for ECW: putting everyone in the same room, and talking about moving forward. Vice President and lead buyer Geoff Watts explained that he called it a stakeholder meeting as thats really what Direct Trade was at Intelligentsia. Our quality and success depends heavily on the success and quality of these producers. At the finale dinner of last year’s ECW, Quincho Alvarez commented that whether you are a roaster, a barista, a producer, or an agronomist, at ECW, we are all Intelligentsia.

The talk was broken into four parts, starting with Geoff. The second part of the talk was by Co CEO and founder Doug Zell, who spoke about how we sell and use their coffee, and what the future looks like. Doug took everyone through the challenges an opportunities to be had in areas like hotels, grocery and restaurant.

This was followed by our Green Coffee Manager Sarah Kluth taking the producers through our new reporting systems that will allow the producers to get fast and frequent feedback on the samples they send us throughout harvest. Finally, Vice Presient of Strategy and head of all things espresso Kyle Glanville brought everyone up to speed on Black Cat Project, and how we were developing new platforms for their coffees by way of seasonal espresso blends like Fruit Bat and Honey Badger.

After some great questions from the producers over issues like quality control at wholesale, everyone took a few hours rest to prepare for the finale dinner – which you can learn more about in the next post. Before they broke apart though, these now close friends insisted on many group photos.