Intelligentsia Releases 1st Coffee from Inaugural ECC Collection
Intelligentsia Coffee has released the first coffee from its newly launched Extraordinary Coffee Competition (ECC) Collection. This is the first of a series of coffees labelled with new gold and white stickers on their packaging; the Extraordinary Coffee Competition (ECC) winner sticker. These stickers recognize coffees that won one or multiple “Best Of” categories from the second ECC that took place during Intelligentsia’s 10th annual Extraordinary Coffee Workshop (ECW) this year.
The first single-origin coffee to feature the new sticker is Kurimi Organic Ethiopia, which won five awards at this year’s ECC, including “Best in Show.” Kurimi comes from the METAD farm in Chelbesa, a coffee region that exceeds all flavour and quality expectations. It maintains an aromatic complexity, while remaining impossibly sweet and delicate combining flavours of honeydew, passionfruit and lemon curd. Fittingly, the name Kurimi is derived from the Amharic word, kureme meaning best of the best.
The ECW is Intelligentsia’s annual week-long internal gathering that brings together Intelligentsia’s Direct Trade supply chain partners from around the world to create a forum where the best ideas and innovations surrounding coffee quality can be exchanged. 2018 marked the tenth year of ECW and was held in Bolivia, with the ECC competition taking place in La Paz.
The ECC challenges Intelligentsia’s grower partners to bring exciting, flavourful and high-quality coffee to the table. Competing in more than 20 categories, producers from 12 countries across four continents work to score at least 90 points on Intelligentsia’s coffee quality scale. The coffees awarded “Best Of” achieved the highest average score across their categories.
Highlighting these winning coffees through the ECC Collection is one of the many ways Chicago, Illinois-based Intelligentsia Coffee works to create extraordinary coffee and experience for its customers. Launched in late November, Kurimi is available for purchase at Intelligentsia’s coffee bars and online. Kurimi comes in 12-oz bags (whole bean and ground) and retails for USD $24.00.
The next ECC Collection to be released is the Finca Takesi, grown from the world’s highest coffee farm in Bolivia.
