How does American intellectual coffee sell coffee? The intellectual coffee icon has a story.

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I like coffee, at least one cup a day, sometimes two cups, but no more, my heart can't stand it. As a student, I started drinking Starbucks, then Seesaw opened in Shanghai, and then small cafes blossomed everywhere. I noticed that these names often appeared on the menu: Ethiopia, Burundi, Kenya... but I still couldn't figure out which beans tasted what, and there was no special preference. Most of the time I choose flat white.

In the words of my barista roommate,"Coffee drinking, you're semi-professional. I made you so many beans, you took a shortcut." When did coffee become "hard"? Its threshold is getting higher and higher, making diners a little scared, a little like wine. To understand how coffee got where it is, I did some research. This coffee called "intellectual coffee" is not small.

I want to tell you the story of this intellectual from the perspective of a coffee lover.

Who calls themselves "intellectuals"?

This intellectual from Chicago was born in 1995 to Doug Zell and Emily Mange. 2015 Peet's Coffee & Tea (owned by JAB Holding Company, which also acquired Stumptown Coffee, another boutique coffee giant).

Despite its logo as a winged bean, the coffee company hasn't flown very far. Coffee shops are currently only available in the United States, distributed in Chicago, New York, Boston, Los Angeles. There are also three bean baking factories in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Venice Beach Coffeebar, Los Angeles

Why are they called intellectuals? Does it make you smarter?

The word Intelligentsia comes from Russian. Around 1860, Russian writer Pyotr Boborykin defined Intelligentsia as "social managers and excellent cultural exporters", that is, a group of cultural people with a sense of social responsibility. But he didn't come up with the word in his head, he borrowed it from the German Intelligenz.

Zell named his coffee company "intellectual" because he didn't want to open a regular little coffee shop. He wanted to go upstream and walk among the coffee farmers and buy beans directly from them. He also wanted to go downstream, among the diners, and tell them the story of each coffee. So the company does have an intellectual coffee ring to it.

Broadway Coffeebar, Chicago

Coffee waves, wave after wave

Today, more and more companies are getting through the upstream and downstream of coffee, and together they form what coffee lovers love to call the "third wave of coffee." What exactly is the third wave? Where are the first and second waves?

Simply put, the first wave is instant coffee, fast and convenient; the second wave is Peet's and Starbucks, which roast their own coffee and focus on the functionality of the cafe; the third wave is to make coffee as exquisite as wine, with coffee beans to be carefully cared for, coffee farmers to be well paid, beans to be lightly roasted to reflect its original flavor; the fourth wave…has actually begun, is to make creative coffee like a cocktail. Ocean Grounds in Shanghai and the newly opened OPS are all like this.

Logan Square Coffeebar, Chicago

Intelligentsia and Stumptown from Portland and Counter Culture from North Carolina are among the third wave coffee players. Intelligentsia was born 22 years ago. At that time, the coffee world was still dominated by Peet's and Starbucks. Most domestic consumers were still drinking instant coffee. Some readers were not even born yet.

Boss, is Zell possessed by a coffee fairy? How did you come up with this idea?

Zell was born to love entrepreneurship. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in history in 1988 and was dissatisfied with a stint at a Japanese electronics company. Moved to California a year later, sold bottled tea. This is a bottled herbal tea with added sweetener. It probably tastes similar to iced tea. At that time, it was not popular to drink this (I have to say, drinks are also fashionable products!), After four years, he finally couldn't stand it anymore and gave up selling tea.

Doug Zell

In 1993, Zell came to San Francisco and was shocked to see some coffee shops roasting coffee in their own shops. After all, before this, everyone drank instant coffee and companion sold in cans in supermarkets.

He learned coffee roasting and making at Peet's, and decided to start a business.

Zell chose Chicago first. I chose my own raw beans, baked them, packaged them, and did the packaging design by the way. He sells the beans to a nearby restaurant, and business is good. And then he started making coffee shops. As mentioned earlier, he doesn't want to open "another cafe." How can it be different? He played three cards.

Chicago Roasting Works

Direct Trade, Intelligentsia First Card

Intelligentsia's disruptive move to the coffee industry is Direct Trade. As the name suggests, buy beans directly from coffee farmers, skipping middlemen. Since they are the first in the industry to do this, the rules of the game are set by them:

Direct access to trade rules

1. Create a new occupation--bean seeker. The first team of six bean hunters spent two-thirds of the year shuttling through coffee plantations in South America, East Africa and Ethiopia. Sees the potential land to live down, provides the technical support to the coffee farmer.

2. Order in advance. Generally speaking, coffee farmers harvest beans to sell in the market, harvest quantity and quality determine the price of beans. The money cycle is long, and coffee farmers panic. Intelligentsia places orders with coffee farmers before the start of each harvest season to concentrate on harvesting beans.

3. Pay attention to the plot. Wine lovers are familiar with the concept of land and terroir. The most famous example is Burgundy, France, where tens of thousands of bottles of Romaney Conti are as expensive as drinking gold. Direct trade in coffee beans also speaks to plots. Intelligentsia sometimes buys only a small area of the coffee garden called a Micro Lot. To ensure quality.

4. Pay attention to the season. We eat vegetables, especially southern cuisine, pay attention to the season. Coffee beans too. Because Intelligentsia collaborates with coffee plantations all over the world, each garden harvests at a different time. Coffee bean harvesting information is updated on the official website and in each store.

Photo from Intelligentsia's website

What is the difference between Fair Trade and Fair Trade? Both are the usual buying patterns for specialty coffee, with the biggest difference being that direct trade money goes to the coffee farmer and fair trade money goes to the importer. The initiative for direct trade lies with the bean bakers, who witness the growth of the beans and decide how long they grow; Fair Trade is certified by Fair Trade USA, an American nonprofit organization, and the bean bakers have no say. (If interested, read Reference #5 at the end of this article)

As soon as the direct trade came out, the coffee peers were unhappy. Who would like to have a big earthquake in their own industry?

"You're disturbing the market order. You're going too far!"

"You guys are making money in the name of charity. It's too much!"

"You guys are using fancy marketing to fool consumers. It's too much!"

However, consumers have no big complaints except complaining about the high price, and most of them are even happy. After all, they have one more option besides Starbucks.

Highline Hotel Coffeebar, New York

Uh, more than one? Stumptown, Counter Culture Coffee has begun to use this model, and some small cafes have emerged one after another, all of which are based on the quality of coffee beans and are divided into finer and finer. Today, in addition to traditional Italian coffee, there are hand-brewed options on the menu of boutique cafes in first-tier cities in China, marked with dazzling names of origin. But I sometimes wonder, isn't that a little too particular?

Barista, Intelligentsia Second Card

In my parents 'generation, baristas were waiters, working for restaurants. I have always felt that baristas, chefs and waiters are not jobs from scratch, but require art and wisdom. Many Starbucks employees in the United States are college students who work part-time. Their original intention is indeed to earn living expenses. However, those who really do well do not regard it as "a job."

Coffee Truck, Highline Hotel, New York

One of the most referenced books for writing this article is Magazine B. Issue 11, and I really like a chapter in this book called Baristas Belongings, What's in the Barista's Bag. Tell me about the two most impressive.

Jack Held works at the Broadway branch in Chicago. He studied sculpture in San Francisco as an undergraduate and moved to Chicago for graduate school. He carried an Under Armour backpack with a jar of peanut butter, because peanut butter tastes good with apples and bananas, and can supplement protein (typical American college students… peanut butter banana); and a mug with Intelligentsia logo, because he doesn't like takeout cups, and it's cool to walk down the street with his own cup. There are also two Buddhist books in the bag, new hobbies.

Jamie Lao works at Venice Coffeebar in Los Angeles. She studied linguistics at UCLA and carried a Freitag bag. There were two balls of wool because she was knitting, a book on Cooking for geeks, an orange purse stuffed with receipts, and a year-round Disneyland pass.

All baristas who work at Intelligentsia have to undergo rigorous training and pass exams to stay. So in their eyes, this shop is a coffee university. What does a new barista learn? Cup testing, coffee extraction, frothing, knowledge of coffee producing areas. This training system has indeed brought results to Intelligentsia. In 2010, Michael Phillips of the Venice branch in Los Angeles became the first American to win the World Barista Competition. He later opened his own Handsome Coffee Roasters, which was also very popular.

Anyway, the name is good. It's called intellectual coffee. Can we not pay attention to coffee education?

Community, Intelligentsia Third Card

What is a good coffee shop? This is like which restaurant is good and which bar is good. It is almost a conversation minefield. Every time you say a name, someone will jump out and retort: "I think this is average, xxx coffee is good!"

Wicker Park Coffeebar, Chicago

If you ask me, when you want coffee (alone at work or with friends), the first place that comes to mind is a good coffee shop. Internet cafes, Starbucks downstairs, coffee shops that make you happy and comfortable are good coffee shops. Fortunately, it meets the needs of photography and social interaction. It doesn't matter whether the coffee is good or not; Starbucks wins conveniently; and if it's good to drink, it's good to look convenient, and it gives inspiration.

Intelligentsia's goal is this. The reason why it hasn't expanded rapidly in more than two decades is that each store has to work hard to integrate into the surrounding community. In other words, the friction between each store and its surroundings is minimal. All that effort to find beans, research baking, decorate the store, all to give consumers an enlightening experience. No wonder it sells at such a high price and is loved by everyone (there are also negative voices saying that it is too expensive, too pretentious, too elitist). Interestingly, a consumer wrote this comment to Amazon's "Black Cat" beans:

I'm creative when I drink it. And somehow,

When I use my Macbook Pro, beans taste better.

Of course, drinking Intelligentsia will not make you smarter, nor will you become an intellectual, but when you drink that cup of coffee, your mood will definitely improve and inspiration will come, which is enough to satisfy people.

resources

1|Magazine B.Issue No.11 Intelligentsia

2 | Intelligentsia Official Website: https://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/

3 | Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea Wikipedia Page

4 | Sprudge Media Network: http://sprudge.com/

5 | Is Direct Trade FairSprudge Media Network

Nora Liu