OUR OFFERINGS - SUMMER SOLSTICE BLEND

Locations:  Honduras, Kenya
Varietals:  Catuai, SL-28, SL-34
Altitude:  1550 - 2100 m
Harvest:  November – March

Flavor:  Stone fruit, milk chocolate, berry
Acidity:  Smooth, balanced
Finish:  Citrus, caramel, marshmallow

Tasting Notes

Entering on the heels of the season’s warm weather, our Summer Solstice Blend is a mouthwatering pairing of two coffees at the peak of freshness, mixed with equal parts sunshine and sweetness.  A balancing act of soft fruits paired with creamy milk chocolate that finishes sweet and clean with a hint of citrus, it’s perfect for enjoying on a calm evening on a porch swing, and equally tantalizing and refreshing when served over ice.  Relax and enjoy.

Geoff’s Notes

Summertime is for letting go. We let our cares ease away into temporary remission and just enjoy the nourishing warmth and vigor that come with these extended hours of daylight. New crop coffees from East Africa and Central America are arriving every week at the Roasting Works, full of vitality and promise. By this time each year much of our sourcing has already been completed, and we can sit back and enjoy some of the fruits of our labor… but the Roasting Crew is busier than ever. Each new coffee arrival needs to be explored and tested in both our sample and production roasters until we are certain that we’ve figured out how to draw the nuances to the surface and achieve a roast that really lets the coffee strut its stuff. No two coffees are exactly the same, and our belief is that each unique lot must be first investigated and understood before we can know exactly what kind of roast is most suitable. This is a time for tinkering, for experimentation. It’s a time to play. We’ve got all these new crop coffees in our hands and it is loads of fun to mess around with different ways to combine them in order to come up with a blend that takes full advantage of the very different characteristics each coffee brings to the table.

Intelligentsia launches a blend for each of the seasons, and they are meant to be an artistic expression of the vibe we experience as we move through the various periods of the year. While single-origins are revered around here for their ability to give insight into specific terroirs and to offer a “taste of place”, a well-crafted blend also has its advantages. The best of them are like symphonies, bringing together qualitatively different pieces that interact harmonically to create something unique and altogether beautiful.

The 2008 version was put together in recent weeks by our Quality Control team in Chicago. We always have an idea about what we’re after but can never be quite sure what we’ll end up with since coffees sometimes combine, like the dancer in the U2 song, in mysterious ways. 1 + 1 does not always equal 2 in the world of sensory experience. It is a difficult to find combinations where flavors synergize rather than compete for attention. We usually go through dozens of iterations before finding what we seek, but there is a general target. The key is that the Summer Solstice blend is always vibrant, that it finishes in a refreshing way with great sweetness, and that it works well over ice. Often we try to build around a citrus theme, and in every case we expect compelling aromatic qualities.

Summer is a time when the air is rich in aromatics, full of life, and there is a carefree and buoyant spirit that permeates the scene. And it is a time to simply tilt the chair back and yield to sweet elation, knowing that we can count on several more months of this before thinking again about the changing seasons. The Summer Solstice Blend is our tribute to these things, a small effort to capture the spirit of the season in a cup and give form to a feeling. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Drink it, relish it, and stay cool.

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