Intelligentsia to hawk custom cups o' joe

March 31, 2006

BY JANET RAUSA FULLER Staff Reporter

With a gently furrowed brow, Stephanie Izard slurped the spoonful of coffee, ground and steeped in hot water just minutes before, swished it around in her mouth and spit.

Izard, 29, chef at Scylla restaurant, was looking for a coffee that was sweet and fruity but not overpowering and this one from Intelligentsia Coffee Roasters, called Ethiopian Yergacheffe, hit all the right notes.

She already serves Intelligentsia coffee at her Bucktown restaurant, but her visit Wednesday to the coffee maker's West Fulton roasting facility was to lay the groundwork for an exclusive blend -- the Scylla blend -- that soon will be available to the public and may very well include this unique African coffee.

$8,000 machine makes it possible

Intelligentsia has long made custom blends for some of the city's best restaurants, including Blackbird, Charlie Trotter's and Frontera Grill -- coffee that (with the exception of Trotter's, which sells its blend at its takeout shop, Trotter's To Go) you could taste only if you were lucky enough to eat there.

But with the opening of its third store at 53 E. Randolph, the boutique company, which works with coffee growers around the world, will make some of those proprietary blends available to the masses by the cup and the pound and, as in Scylla's case, create new, limited-edition "chef's blends."

"It's bringing a piece of what's great about their restaurants, a small, marvelous dose of it, to the discerning coffee customer," said Intelligentsia founder Doug Zell.

The store, slated to open April 28, will feature its usual coffee-of-the-day selections. It will also feature a "brew bar" where customers can choose among a half-dozen offerings, including one of a rotating lineup of chef's blends, and watch as a barista prepares their coffee to order via a new, single-cup brewing machine.

The Clover machine, which brews a cup in about 45 seconds, will enable a customer interested in buying whole beans by the pound to taste it, ground and brewed, on the spot, Zell said.

There are only five other roasters nationwide using the $8,000 Clover machine, which came on the market early this year, said Zander Nosler, founder of the Coffee Equipment Company, its Seattle-based manufacturer.

Zell said his customers often ask about a blend they've tasted at a restaurant but until now, "We've never been able to meet that demand. This way, they can try by the cup and by the pound, for very limited runs." Prices for brewed coffee will range from $2.50 to $3.50 a cup, he said.

Exclusive offerings 'a given'

For restaurants, the type of coffee they serve -- and increasingly, even the water they pour -- has become yet another distinguishing factor. Especially in fine-dining restaurants, exclusive blends are "a given" these days, said Mike Ferguson, spokesman for the Specialty Coffee Association.

Zell said the owners of Blackbird approached him two years before the restaurant opened to develop a house blend. Izard said she's even gotten pitches from high-end tea and water companies suggesting she add menus devoted to those drinks.

"It's interesting that people are starting to care about these kinds of beverages you used to not think about," she said.

Adam Joffe, 25, an equities trader and regular at the Intelligentsia cafe in the Monadnock Building on Jackson, said he's likely to check out the new store and the new blends.

"I'm loyal to this coffee. Any opportunity to expand their market I think is great," he said.

jfuller@suntimes.com