Intelligentsia is a leading Chicago-area roaster with a Keith Haring-style logo, excellent coffee, and a commitment to quality epitomized by the practice of printing roast dates on coffee packaging. Oromo is one of several Intelligentsia espresso blends. Visit www.intelligentsia.com or call 1-888-945-9786 for more info.
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Black Cat Espresso
Intelligentsia is a leading Chicago-area roaster with a Keith Haring-style logo, excellent coffee, and a commitment to quality epitomized by the practice of printing roast dates on coffee packaging. Black Cat is one of several Intelligentsia espresso blends. Visit www.intelligentsiacoffee.com or call 1-888-945-9786 for more info.
Solstice Blend
Complex and exotic, this moderately dark-roasted blend sits sharply but sweetly on the palate. Intelligentsia is a youthful (founded 1995) but tradition-minded Chicago specialty roaster with bold Keith Haringish graphics and an impressive line of coffees.
Premium Coffee Blends
The upside of blending coffees is the possibility of creating a coffee with more range and complexity than can be displayed by a coffee from a single crop or origin. The downside is the potential loss of idiosyncrasy or distinctiveness, the danger of creating a boring muddle rather than a complex symphony. Although only one of the twelve blends reviewed here struck me as a full-on symphonic
The Elves Imperial Breakfast Blend
Good, deep dimension, but little sweetness to support the deeply tart fruit notes. Great for elves with a taste for dry, pungent, dark-roasted coffee. Intelligentsia is a two-store retailer/roaster that has brought a well-modulated version of the West-Coast dark-roasting style to Chicago.
Best Sellers
The coffees that sell best in the American specialty marketplace often are not the same coffees that American specialty coffee professionals (and reviewers) would like to see sell the best. It occurred to me to ask a selection of regional roasters for the coffees their customers prefer, as opposed to the coffees they prefer as professionals. Coffee Review staff members approached six