At the Venice shop, we get a lot of people coming in for a lot of different reasons. It’s not always so easy to tell what the reason is, & sometimes I wonder if it really matters. If the too-cool-for-school person pops in every day for a gibraltar or three, the business is sustainable (as a business) & it’s sending that success on up the chain, all the way back to the farmers. Yay.

But it’s a wonderful thing to be given the opportunity to talk to that customer about Direct Trade & to blow their Yirgacheffing minds.

Secret: I used to be intimidated by Intelligentsia Silver Lake. It wasn’t the hipsterdom. It was the knowing — people seemed to KNOW something about it, & I couldn’t discern what that thing was, & though I could taste a difference I didn’t know how to begin to describe it. I find, now, when people ask me “What’s different about Intelligentsia?” that talking about Direct Trade is a good way to start. The DT relationship rewards good, quality work from the farmers, which in turn produces a better bean, better processing methods, import, roast, & then we have the great honor to take it from there.

But it’s the people who were like I was that I worry about. It’s hard to volunteer that kind of information, especially because it’s kind of an involved conversation, & sometimes they just want their damned latte already. Recently a new friend learned I worked at IntelliVenice & said immediately “That place is too fancy for me.” I was truly saddened & tried to reverse that perception. I’m still not certain I was successful.

I reckon communicating the essence of a big company such as your’s is an awesomely challenging idea, especially because of the relatively simple and short interaction coffee places have with their clients. Maybe linking your ‘real world’ customers to the massive body of ‘cyber world’ customers and critics somehow would help to illustrate your big picture. This would take any strain away from your face time with customers, and possibly help stimulate more interaction on the customers time, online. Really like your blog man.

Cheers,

Nic