Black Cat Customers: Thanks for Understanding!

As many of you who buy Black Cat Classic espresso from us already know, the current blend has some Rwandan Zirikana coffee in it (as does the current Aldo House blend). The Zirikana is a wonderful coffee and adds depth and fruity zing to both blends.

Except... all Rwanda coffees from this past year's harvest, including Zirikana, are subject to what's known as "potato bug".  The reason it's called that is because when you run across it, you'll smell and taste raw potato.  It's not pleasant.

We've written about this before - this defect is difficult to detect in picking and processing.  And unfortunately, it's pretty much inevitable that if you drink a lot of coffee with Rwanda in it, you'll run across it.  Apparently, Intelligentsia felt it was worth the risk to add Rwandan to these blends because of how good the coffee generally is.  In espresso the defect appears in about one in 450 shots.  In other words, it's rare.  But if you get that one shot, you'll remember it.

We've heard from customers who've bought Black Cat here. We've heard from customers who've had Rwanda coffee at other shops. We've even heard from other owners who sell Black Cat and have had customers throw bags back at them and asking us "why"?

The good news is, the Rwanda is out of the Black Cat, replaced with Bolivia Anjilanaka's vanilla and cherry notes.  The bad news is we still need to wait a week before we see it - our coffee was roasted on Monday and the change wasn't made until Tuesday.  So the Black Cat that's arriving this afternoon will still have the Rwanda in it.

If you come across the defect in any retail bag you purchase, please bring it back for a full refund.  We've tried to tell everyone who's bought a bag the past three weeks, but just in case you didn't know about it, we are offering refunds.

As for the house blend, there's only 5% Rwanda in that.  It should be out of the blend by next week.  The raw potato aroma may be noticeable, but usually much less than the Black Cat.  Still, if you've purchased a bag of our Aldo House blend and experienced issues with this bug, please bring it bag for a full refund.

Comments

[James Hoffmann]

Somewhat ironically, after we made a big fuss about the potential for potato in the coffee we sent out as subscription, and the stuff we sold in the shop - not one single customer has mentioned it.

Some wrote saying they kind of wished they had had it because they wanted to smell it!

Such is the oddity of life. Having typed this we'll likely get nothing but potato for the next couple of months!

[Rich]

James,
Kudos to you for having been up front with your customers about it. We need to see more of that from the roasting community.

While we've had a protocol for dealing with it thanks to conversations we initiated with our roaster, we know there are shops serving Rwandan - potato and all. And they're losing customers because of it.

[Luke]

Sorry to hear that.

I had one 5lb bag, back in February around the time of the competition, that was undeniably potato-ey. We pulled it from the chemex bar immediately. You couldn't miss the smell of the beans, and it was overwhelming when hot water hit it. Intelli took care of it for us, and I have to say that in the past month and a half I have not encountered a single bad batch.

We have been brewing various versions of rwandan coffee in airpots, on the clover, pulling shots, and we also have the CoE Maraba espresso- all have tasted great. I guess that's why it's frustrating when it does occur.

If you'd like to stop by sometime and try ours, or bring some of the defective stuff... we can taste them side by side.

[rich]

Luke,
You wouldn't want to taste the stuff we've pulled from stock.

Count your blessings on being lucky. So far this year we've had it in two 5 lb. bags of Zirikana we ordered (we eliminated that from rotation because of the problem), three 5 lb bags of BC Classic (you can isolate it when pulling shots and not lose the whole bag - if paying attention), two 5 lb. bags of Eros blend, and one 5 lb. bag of our House so far - we're still carrying some with potential for defect as of this morning. Now that's maybe 5% of the total potential that could've been affected, but it's enough to warrant concern.

The good news is Intelligentsia is sending us some different coffee today to replace the bags of BC and Aldo House that still have Rwanda in them. So good on them for the response.

What concerns us more is the retail bags. If we're grinding it, we'll catch it. If not, we may never see that customer again if they happen to get one with the potato. Seems that's already happened with another shop in town.

We've had to be concerned with this on a micro-level. Every customer is important to us, and especially those regularly buying retail coffee from our store.

From our conversations with Intelligentsia, it seems many shop owners aren't nearly as diligent in identifying, reporting and working around the issue.