It’s the slow season for coffee, at least at retail. Central American crops are starting to show their age, South American coffees are trickling in, and African beans are (mostly) still being processed at origin.

However, this has been a busy week for us in the QC lab, sampling and cupping hundreds of coffees. Our Rwanda Zirikana finally arrived, and is kick-ass. A large portion of our time has been spent evaluating Nicaraguan coffees that have been flooding in to build our Flor Azul for this year. The farmer’s samples have ranged in the size of the lot they represent from 12 qqs to as little as 0.5 qqs (less than a 60kg bag). It’s been grueling, and rewarding, to build this coffee from the smallest of blocks, but it won’t be until later this summer when we see the final results.

The Black Cat Espresso has been consuming inordinate amounts of our time recently as well. Regional barista competitions are already upon us, with the USBC in May. The GLRBC (Great Lakes Regional Barista Competition) is next weekend, March 13-16, hosted by Alterra Coffee in Milwaukee. Goodrich Gevaart and Deanna Myers, whom I worked with at the Millennium Park Cafe, are competing this year, as are training department head Amber Sather and Broadway Cafe in-store trainer Mike Phillips whom I competed with at last year’s GLRBC and both of whom went on to compete in the 2007 USBC. Rounding out Intelli’s team are the always smiling Alexandra Switzer (our wholesale trainer), improvisationally inclined Andy Carey (training specialist), social advocate Talya Strader, and latte-art genie Charles Babinski. Good Luck Team!