Buyer's Notebook: Reintroducing the Intelligentsia i-Marks

Intelligentsia Coffee

Most roasters name their single-origin offerings after the farms on which they are grown or the farmers who grew them. We do some of that. But many of our single-origin coffees are released under Intelligentsia marks, or I-marks, that we apply to each of the origins where we source coffee. Our I-marks invoke gods, angels and saints, animals, plants and minerals, and other sources of inspiration. They may be fun, but the serve a serious purpose as perennial testaments to the seed-to-cup curation you expect from our single-origin coffees. In this Buyer's Notebook episode, our VP of Coffee Geoff Watts explains the what, how and why of our I-marks and wrestles with the suggestion that they may undermine our commitment to transparency. The Intelligentsia Buyer's Notebook: the stories of our coffees in the words of the buyers themselves.