Tips for most recent Intelligentsia Black Cat? - Page 2

[Marshall]

I have to disagree with your assessment. I believe Jim's explanation of our philosophy is spot on.

respectfully,
Matt Riddle

This might be a good subject to take up at the Roasters Guild retreat.

[another_jim]

In terms of "Signature Blends" this is just crap. A roaster and blender "paying attention to details" should be able to reproduce their signature blend exactly, regardless of the changes in blend components.

Actually, this is what's crap. And Alan, you're in the business, so you know it.

Blenders who get absolute consistency, year in, year out, say, for instance, in a blend of Sidamo, Brazil, and Sumatra, do it by using five or six different Sidamos, Brazils and Sumatras each year, carefully compositing them into a standard varietal taste. The Brazil coffee board will even help one do this by creating blends with a constant ratio of 4 or 5 chemical markers. Illy uses the same "electronic nose" technology to keep all the regions represented in their blends completely standardized. A smaller, less high tech roaster can do something very similar by relying on importer's "generic specialty" coffees: the endless list of "Guatemala SHB," "El Salvador SHG", "Columbia Excelso", etc etc that Holland, Royal or Volcafe blend and import. These importers know their business extremely well, and they keep these generics highly consistent year in, year out.

In other words, blenders who get absolute consistency year in year out do it by using second rate coffees, coffees that cup at around 82 to 87 points. There is no other way to do it. There are just too few coffees that rate higher each year, and they will vary.

If a consumer (almost by definition not a coffee lover) wants consistency, they should not buy any of the blends we talk about here, since none of them follow this blending strategy. Instead, they all take great pride (and get very competitive) in locating the very best coffees they can afford to use, and blending with those.

This means there's going to misses sometimes: blends that are hard to pull, or blends that don't appeal to some buyers who liked it in previous iterations. For instance, it's no secret that I wasn't a huge fan of Black Cat last year. However, this is the price you pay to get really top class espresso ...

... And if you get your attitude right about it, it's also one of the rewards. It's impossible for a blend to get better if all the energy goes into keeping it the same, and all the risk of it getting worse is eliminated.

[cai42]

Greetings

Why would I want to buy Black Cat if I could never be sure what blend is in the bag?

Cliff

[HB]

I think Matt answered your question earlier:

We always do our best to adhere to the core of what Black Cat is. Over time our tastes may change, our palates may change, but the core of the blend will remain the same.

[zoroaster]

Stunning to me. The company has a web site. The product is different. No information on the web site. Stupid unappreciative customers.
Really?!?
Wow.
If this was my company getting spanked on multiple forums I would be taking a very different approach. I get the issues of an agricultural product but the company is really missing the boat here.

[another_jim]

Greetings

Why would I want to buy Black Cat if I could never be sure what blend is in the bag?

Cliff

Why would you want to buy it if you know exactly what's in the bag? I'm seriously asking.

Is pulling a shot of Black Cat like a shelter from some insanely chaotic day, so that the more it's the same every time, the more comforting it becomes? I've never really thought of espresso this way; brandy maybe, but never espresso. It seems that maybe this is what some of the posters are looking for.

[zoroaster]

Interesting conversation for me, as I am new to espresso. I assumed named blends would not vary in characteristics. Jim, don't you find your name brands as a comfort in the world? Most marketing is directed to enhance that very character. I certainly get the notion of exploration into taste, and the belief that the world be diminished without variety. But you can have both. I looked to blends intentionally to ensure the product remained constant as my skills are seriously variable at this point. Glad I have access to the forums. I have learned a lot from this thread alone.

[cai42]

Jim,

Would you keep buying your favorite brandy if 2 or 3 times a year they changed the formulation and didn't mention it on the container?

Cliff

[King Seven]

This is a really interesting topic, and I have to say that I come down on the side of Intelly.

As Jim said - the only way I've ever seen genuine consistency maintained is with 2nd rate coffees - either sourcing generic origin tastes, or roasting the individual characteristics out of the greens.

I would never want to work like that - I am always more interested in what is new, fresh and delicious - in coffees that have character and individuality. This of course creates the consistency dilemma.

I suppose this is where you pick an ethos and let it guide you. Consistency of quality and interest are more important to me than absolute consistency of taste. I get the comfort of a familiar product, I completely understand the pleasure in a reliable product but I also understand the conflict a roaster like Intelli would have in creating it.

Intelli is a company full of people bitten by coffee, who have tasted what is possible, what is exciting and are driven by that. (I know I don't really have the right to speak on their behalf - this is just my impression of them).

Coffee has never tasted better than it has today. It simply hasn't. Knowledge, standards, technology and drive across all of the industry have never reached the levels of today and things will only get better. Absolute consistency would mean you would ignore this, refute this and wish to stay stuck in a golden year or time. Companies like Intelli have the power to drive things forward, always want to improve but as Matt demonstrates on this forum - always want to interact with their customer. These things, I believe, are to be applauded and not criticised.

[another_jim]

Interesting conversation for me, as I am new to espresso. I assumed named blends would not vary in characteristics. ... I looked to blends intentionally to ensure the product remained constant as my skills are seriously variable at this point.

.... I would never want to work like that - I am always more interested in what is new, fresh and delicious - in coffees that have character and individuality. This of course creates the consistency dilema.

Wow! It's not often we get to the heart of an argument, but with David's, an espresso newbie's, and Jim's, a barista world champion's, posts it looks like we're there.

It may be that Intelly needs to communicate their approach more clearly in its sales communications. In manufacturing of all sorts, quality control has improved to such stellar levels that any inconsistency has us suspecting poor quality or some sort of mistake. Moreover, there are expensive and distinguished espresso blends that are absolutely consistent, Illy is famous, and I'm sure Alan's is even better. So a blend like Black Cat, which is more a combo of a few great coffees than an orchestra of lots of very good ones, with occasional cold nights, may need to be explained.

Cliff, when I was growing up my best friend's dad was a coffee roaster along with having a wine and spirits business. His favorite brandy was the Napoleon made by Cognac Robin, and he'd put it out against Hine's and Delamain's to show how much better it was. A few months back I was looking for it, and found out the company had picked up stakes and moved to Sonoma.

[John P]

I also side with Intelly on this one. Intelly is in a difficult position... They are a giant in the world of independents, yet they behave as if they are a small, quality-focused indie.... with incredible sourcing!

Black Cat has become synonymous with "high-end" espresso, and just like a fine wine, one year may be to your liking, and another may not... but the care, and dedication to craft remain year after year -- along with improvements in agricultural technique, blending technique, roasting technique, etc.

The only difference between Intelly and a smaller, quality-focused entity, is that Intelly has more beans to play with... There are only so many hours in a day, and I can't imagine how many permutations they go through where they cry out, "Hey, come taste this, it freakin' rocks!" and then an hour later they find something better.... but as Matt said, the core, the essence of Black Cat remains the same. It's the changing nuances that make great espresso a joy to have.

Celebrate the complexity!

[Alan Frew]

Actually, this is what's crap. And Alan, you're in the business, so you know it.

And I have over 23 years experience with both blending and customers, those poor buggers who pay me enough to stay in business.

Blenders who get absolute consistency, year in, year out, say, for instance, in a blend of Sidamo, Brazil, and Sumatra, do it by using five or six different Sidamos, Brazils and Sumatras each year, carefully compositing them into a standard varietal taste. The Brazil coffee board will even help one do this by creating blends with a constant ratio of 4 or 5 chemical markers. Illy uses the same "electronic nose" technology to keep all the regions represented in their blends completely standardized. A smaller, less high tech roaster can do something very similar by relying on importer's "generic specialty" coffees: the endless list of "Guatemala SHB," "El Salvador SHG", "Columbia Excelso", etc etc that Holland, Royal or Volcafe blend and import. These importers know their business extremely well, and they keep these generics highly consistent year in, year out.

In other words, blenders who get absolute consistency year in year out do it by using second rate coffees, coffees that cup at around 82 to 87 points. There is no other way to do it. There are just too few coffees that rate higher each year, and they will vary.

If you're talking about the Illys of the world this is probably true. If you're talking about the little guys like me, it's pure bull. When I create a blend I use the best quality beans I can get my hands on, then work on the synergies between them. Individual cupping scores simply don't matter, it's a BLEND so almost by definition really spectacular and high scoring single origins simply aren't going to work. The other thing that people often forget is that post-roast blends (all of mine) allow adjustment to the overall balance by manipulating the roasts of the individual components. There's also the bit about stumping up tens of thousands of dollars, in advance and on faith, to ensure supply and consistency of particular beans.

If a consumer (almost by definition not a coffee lover) wants consistency, they should not buy any of the blends we talk about here, since none of them follow this blending strategy. Instead, they all take great pride (and get very competitive) in locating the very best coffees they can afford to use, and blending with those.

So the total market for the blends discussed on HB and CG is maybe 150 people, tops? And everybody else is a "consumer"? Intelligentsia would be bankrupt within a week if that was true. And because it's NOT true, it means that blend variations can result in a lot of dissatisfied customers. This isn't theory, it's cold, hard fact backed by decades of selling coffee at the sharp end of the business.

This means there's going to misses sometimes: blends that are hard to pull, or blends that don't appeal to some buyers who liked it in previous iterations. For instance, it's no secret that I wasn't a huge fan of Black Cat last year. However, this is the price you pay to get really top class espresso ...

... And if you get your attitude right about it, it's also one of the rewards. It's impossible for a blend to get better if all the energy goes into keeping it the same, and all the risk of it getting worse is eliminated.

Again, if Black Cat is Intelly's Signature blend, the one they want to use to attract new customers and retain existing customers, and it's going to be varying from year to year or season to season, tell your customers! Otherwise do the work to keep it consistent, or demote it from a signature blend to an "Aficionado's Choice 2008 Blend" or something similar. Anything else simply cheats your regular customer (not "consumer", customer) of the quality they expect.

Alan

[cai42]

Greetings,

I was under the impression that the market place determined when a product was unsatifactory and had to be changed and not the company that produced it.

Cliff

[JohnB.]

The only difference between Intelly and a smaller, quality-focused entity, is that Intelly has more beans to play with... There are only so many hours in a day, and I can't imagine how many permutations they go through where they cry out, "Hey, come taste this, it freakin' rocks!" and then an hour later they find something better.... but as Matt said, the core, the essence of Black Cat remains the same. It's the changing nuances that make great espresso a joy to have.

Celebrate the complexity!

Did you try any of this spring's Black Cat? I did & like many others I wasted a lot of time & coffee searching for that "core" I keep hearing about here. This wasn't a subtle change of "nuances"; the key flavors that many of us associate with Black Cat were missing. Yet the description on the website remained the same with no mention of these core flavors being replaced with the "fruitiness" we heard about later.

If Intelly wants to change their Signature Blend at will I guess that is their right but I believe that they owe it to their customers to let them know when this happens so we can make an informed choice. Leaving the same description up on the website that was accurate for the previous version but turns out to be just wishful thinking when it comes to the new one is dishonest & false advertising.

Like most coffee buyers I read these descriptions & base my buying decisions on them. When I start pulling shots I go back to that description & compare it to what I'm tasting. If I'm not getting those flavors I keep tweaking my grind/temp/dose/ect until I do. I get a great deal of satisfaction in being able to dial in a blend or s/o & fine these flavors. I get zero satisfaction from wasting lots of time & coffee only to find out that they only exist in an out of date website description.

[kyle glanville]

As the one responsible for the maintenance of the coffee in question, I feel it time to chip in my $.02.

I'm sorry to those who have felt disappointed in the latest iterations of the Black Cat. It was not my intention to release something that felt like a huge departure from the core flavor profile of the Cat. That said, we do expect that everyone who uses the espresso will experience the gentle undulations of seasonality as the blend matures and ultimately (I hope) improves.

Our coffee purchases for the Cat are driven by the search for the highest quality espresso coffees first and coffees that match certain flavor profiles second. Almost never will one of those elements come at the expense of another. But being as the coffee is based on seasonality, when a harvest in, say, Brazil is one month behind we are going to do our best to fill gaps and maintain a blend which is consistently great.

I believe our 2008 crop Cat will be the best yet. If the early harvest coffees we are buying from Brazil are any indication this goal will not be hard to meet. We will also be releasing more espressos as well as a comprehensive web resource to find exactly what's in the coffee at any given time, as well as our most recent tasting notes on the blends.

And we will continue to encourage your feedback on this and other forums as we learn, progress, and craft our formula. It is a never ending work in progress and we like to know what is and isn't working for you.

Thanks for listening,

Kyle Glanville
Intelligentsia Coffee

[JohnB.]

Kyle - Thanks for taking the time to read & reply to the concerns raised here. I look forward to seeing the new info & tasting notes up on your website as well as seeing what new Espressos you will be offering.

[WR]

I think both sides to this discussion are hitting points that are correct. We, educated consumers who spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about, reading about, talking about and tweaking about with coffee, FULLY understand that there is seasonal variation in a blend. We understand that a roaster would want to alter a blend profile to work better with changes in technique as they are being explored. I think we are just asking that YOU TELL US ABOUT IT. You have a website... post even a couple of sentences explaining what's going on. I think a LOT of us have stopped buying BC because it changed so dramatically and none of us could figure out how to get it to work. I'm all for the experimentation, just give your customer a little guidance. I think the point has been made here and i'm guessing that your year over year comp sales reports are telling you that you made a mistake. I for one am looking forward to the email from intelli "subject: NEW BLACK CAT!!!!" with the full update and i'll be the first in line to check it out. For now i can't be bothered to just keep ordering and waiting for something to happen in the cup.

[A2chromepeacock]

I think we are just asking that YOU TELL US ABOUT IT.

Couldn't say it better! We're information junkies. Just tell us when something (major) changes. No one expects 100% repeatability in each bag--we are aware of and appreciate your dedication to microlot sorting and roasting. But the big changes without notice are frustrating: I think the problems/unanticipated changes in the cup are due to me, I get frustrated, and order from elsewhere.

I think a LOT of us have stopped buying BC because it changed so dramatically and none of us could figure out how to get it to work.

Yep, I haven't ordered BC since early spring, and still order weekly from elsewhere--and the elsewhere is more expensive!

But this thread alone is taking me back to ordering a bag of the "next" Black Cat, right now...see, it works!!

[RE*AC*TOR]

Really interesting thread here guys. Being from Ireland I haven't had a chance to try any of the previous iterations of Black Cat. Recently, however, a friend of mine brought a freshly roasted bag back from the US (roasted about 2 weeks ago). So I've had some time to sample it.

My knowledge of espresso blends includes various Italian blends, some UK ones, local Irish ones (and as of the last couple of weeks some US blends).

Black Cat blew me away, it was immense, complex, luxurious. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting having read some of the previous descriptions, but if anything it exceeded my expectations.

So I'm a little surprised at the general negativity of tone of this thread. I'd probably give my left nut to have regular access to this stuff (maybe I would've given both of them for a previous iteration).

As always though, I guess I'm just envious that these are the "problems" you guys experience. Oh to have these problems!

[mkauzer]

Does anyone expect the 06 Cabernet from your favorite winery to have an identical flavor profile as the 05?
Are we disappointed that wines vary from year to year?