PRESS - CHICAGO SUN-TIMES - HIGHER GROUNDS

July 25, 2007
BY SANDY THORN CLARK

Though smitten with his first sip of specialty coffee in San Francisco in the early '90s, Doug Zell hardly envisioned becoming founder, CEO and -- pardon the pun -- chief bean counter of Chicago-based Intelligentsia, one of the country's fastest growing specialty coffee companies.

His is a real life success story. It might even qualify as a trite rags-to-riches story but Zell, who peddles his bike to work from his nearby River West home and sports a T-shirt emblazoned with "I Hope I Never Die," defies the trappings commonly associated with wealth.

Still, Zell has grounds for celebration.

In 12 years, Intelligentsia has grown from a no-name to a company with 110 employees and a 25,000-square-foot warehouse at 1850 W. Fulton that produces more than 1.25 million pounds of freshly roasted coffee a year. There also are three retail stores (3123 N. Broadway, 53 E. Randolph and 53 W. Jackson), and more than 700 wholesale customers. In addition, Intelligentsia recently opened a store and roasting facility in Los Angeles.

Among the wholesale customers are some of Chicago's finest chefs -- Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, Charlie Trotter of Charlie Trotter's, Grant Achatz of Alinea, Paul Kahan of Blackbird, Shawn McClain of Custom House, and Michael Shrader of N9Ne Steak House -- who hand-select beans to customize specialty brews for the discriminating tastes of their patrons.

The Frontera House Blend, for example, made with beans from three continents, has hints of sweet apple, pear, light oak and rich toffee. That differs greatly from the Charlie Trotter's Blend, which is made from a combination of Central American beans and offers subtle fruit notes and a slight chocolaty sweetness or the Blackbird Blend, which is made with Latin American beans and is full-bodied with flavor notes of cocoa, spice and berry.

Intelligentsia has expanded and cultivated relationships with its international network of coffee farmers -- who grow quality beans for incentive pay at least 25 percent above the average Fair Trade price -- in locations including Mexico (Oaxaca and Chiapas), Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, Indonesia (Sumatra and Java), Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Sulawesi, East Timor, Peru and El Salvador.

It's all part of Zell's belief that drinkers will pay considerably more for better quality coffee, and that growers can share in the margins if they produce beans that rate high on a "cupping score" (modeled on the way estate wines are evaluated) using Intelligentsia standards.

"We didn't really envision this in the beginning," admits Zell, a University of Wisconsin alum who worked for three California specialty companies and opened an unsuccessful juice and sweetened iced tea business with a childhood friend before meeting and marrying Emily Mange, who had worked at Whole Foods. On April Fool's Day in 1995, the couple packed their possessions into a worn Isuzu Trooper and left San Francisco.

In the basement of his parents' home in his native Milwaukee, Zell and Mange created an entrepreneurial plan that became Intelligentsia, named after the European coffeehouses of yesteryear where people gathered for lively intellectual discussion.

On Oct. 9, 1995, with a small coffee roaster that roasted 40,000 pounds a year, the two opened their first Intelligentsia Coffee store in Chicago's Lakeview East neighborhood.

Intelligentsia isn't -- and never will be -- Starbucks, but that doesn't bother Zell.

"We don't plan on having 10,000 stores. We're focused on quality, serendipity, strategy and experience," Zell says. "That would be like saying to a great hamburger place like Boston Blackies, 'What about this McDonald's place?' We look at competition as ourselves and, frankly, we're very good at what we do. People want to go to quality-focused independents, but they won't support an independent place that's crappy."

Ironically, Zell doesn't begin his day with coffee (though he brews coffee for his wife each morning); instead, he drinks Intelligentsia hot tea. As the day progresses, the man who loves pizza and Asian, Mexican and Thai cuisine drinks two cups of coffee and two double espressos. He prefers Intelligentsia's Black Cat Espresso -- a heavy-bodied blend with dominant notes of chocolate, caramel and dried fruit -- minus sugar and cream ("though sometimes I add milk if I haven't eaten").

Zell, whose hobbies include skiing and bike riding, tries to limit his workaholic tendencies to spend time with the couple's 5-year-old daughter, Scarlet.

In the next five years, Zell plans to expand Intelligentsia's tea program and build on the emerging trend of coffee blends becoming as seasonal as produce and restaurant menus.

"The reality is, we're just getting started," says the man whose cup is always half full.

Sandy Thorn Clark is a Chicago-based free lance writer.

Some advice from Intelligentsia's baristas:

Ingredients: Buy whole coffee beans and grind them just before use. Use a burr grinder rather than a blade grinder for espresso. Use filtered water, even if it's just a pitcher with a charcoal filter. Temperature: Never heat or reheat coffee or milk in a microwave. To get the best extraction from the beans, the water should be heated to at least 180 degrees. Taste: Experiment while searching for favorite flavor combinations, but be careful with espresso since precision is important. Storage: Contrary to popular opinion, coffee should not be stored in a freezer or refrigerator. Keep it in an airtight container in a dark place at room temperature, for no longer than two weeks.

Cleaning: Residue on equipment affects coffee's flavor. To clean an espresso or coffee maker, use a cleaner made specifically for the machine or use vinegar or citric acid from a lemon slice (rinse the machine thoroughly after cleaning).

Sandy Thorn Clark