I'm here in Addis Ababa, capital city of Ethiopia. I arrived on Sunday evening, after spending a week in Kenya visiting the farmers of the Gikanda and Thiriku cooperatives in Nyeri and attending the 10th annual EAFCA (East African Fine Coffee Association) conference in Mombasa.
After providing a state of the state in Specialty Coffee for the upcoming decade in my previous blog post, I thought that a 2009 Intelligentsia recap was in order.
It's my first time in the Land of Oz. I'm quite happy to have come here, and it's not just because of the fuzzy koalas, the Jocko memorabilia, or the vegemite sandwiches. The Aussies have been making a lot of noise in recent years within the Specialty Coffee industry and the opportunity to have a first-hand look at what's going on was too hard to pass up.
There was a ride at my childhood park. I believe it was a merry-go-round. You'd hop on and your sibling would spin and spin and spin with all their might. The world would rush past, swirling colors and trees, the ground would shift, your ears would ring and your tummy would navigate upwards into your chest.
Since my last writing, I've been back and forth from Central America a couple times, attended the Specialty Coffee Association of America show, and spent two weeks in Africa. I am currently attending the Cup of Excellence competition in Nicaragua.
Almost all of the builds for our Central American coffees have been solidified this year. From what I know of previous years, this is the fastest it has ever come together. I’ve enjoyed tasting these coffees; the freshness, the snap and character are all unrivaled when a coffee is just out of harvest. Any lemon note is juicier, plum note deeper, chocolate note sustained.
Winter has most certainly made up its mind to stay in Chicago. Having grown up in the Midwest, I have a particular fondness for snow. In our family, a cancelled day of school meant time outside. I learned to bundle up and take advantage of the iced-over streams that were normally un-traversable, and I discovered remarkable beauty in a land saturated with winter.
I am sitting in Machado, Brazil as a member of the international jury at the second to last day of the 2008 Brazil Cup of Excellence. It has been a number of years since I attended my first COE in Nicaragua. I remember thinking at the time, "hmm, this could go somewhere." And indeed it has.
Earlier this week we held an event at our Roasting Works that was designed to explore the ways in which different brewing methods impact coffee taste. It was pretty rockin'. The entire Chicago staff came out and we spent a couple hours playing around with three coffees: Los Inmortales, El Salvador Micro-Lot: Finca Matalapa; Kurimi, Ethiopia Yirgacheffe; and our 2008 Celebration Blend.
I'm here in Lima, Peru helping to conduct a national coffee competition. In the understatement of the year, I will tell you that it has been an interesting week. By now you know that we've been actively involved in various coffee quality competitions for many years, with much effort going to the Cup of Excellence, which is the undisputed gold standard when it comes to these kinds of events.
The energy in NYC spills out onto every street. There is a feeling of constant activity, a rhythmic breathing that makes me want to DO something. Very cool indeed.
It takes a heckuva lot to stand out in a crowd of top-tier talent. Every once in a while there emerges an individual who simply performs on a different level than everyone else, one who can only be judged against themselves because no rival comes close enough to make it interesting. Wayne Gretzky. Michael Jordan. Lance Armstrong. Michael Phelps. The list is short.