Inside Intelligentsia’s Extraordinary Coffee Workshop In Ethiopia
This is the story of how our friends & partners at Intelligentsia Coffee brought dozens of the world’s best coffee producers to Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Back in October 2011, we were invited along with a few other journalists and observers to take part in Intelligentsia Coffee’s Extraordinary Coffee Workshop in Los Angeles . The ECW is Intelligentsia’s annual, closed-door, origin conference; part hardcore policy session, part farmer summer camp, these events are as exclusive and cloistered as they are fascinating, and comprise an international who’s who of top coffee producers. No outside journalists were invited to participate at ECW 2014, which means information is only available directly from Intelligentsia Coffee. Geoff Watts is one of the coffee industry’s most influential and revered green buyers. Much of how specialty coffee speaks now—microlots, direct trade, the expectation for knowledge of source—can be traced back to Watts and his fellow special