Intelligentsia Coffee Roasting Works Tours

Yesterday, my friend and I toured the Intelligentsia roasting facility on Fulton Street. I like coffee (I'm more of a tea person) but I'm always interested in the creative process, whether it's about coffee or wine or a great meal. I was not disappointed. In fact, I was blown away by how much complexity and subjectivity is involved in coffee growing, buying, and roasting.

Our tour guide, Trey, was extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about all aspects of coffee and Intelligentsia's business functions. He talked about the company's history, differences among coffee growing regions, cupping (tasting/evaluating), buying/pricing activities, their training program and barista competitions (!), and their antique German Gothot roasters.

They negotiate most of their green coffee prices directly with the producing farms, so they're not very involved with the commodities market (although I assume they do some hedging). We met one of the owners and green coffee buyer, Geoff, who actually visits these farms all over the world. He demonstrated the roasting process for us, which is as far from automated as you can imagine, and gave us each a 1/2 lb bag of the freshly roasted beans.

I highly recommend this tour to anyone who's remotely interested in coffee, entrepreneurship, or even antique machinery. It costs $3 (reservations recommended) and lasts about an hour, plus time for drinking coffee, hanging out, and q&a.

Intelligentsia Roasting Works
1850 W Fulton
888-945-9786 x23

Wow, thanks for this info! My husband is going to be thrilled to hear this, he loves Intelligentsia and this will be fun for our next trip.

Do they mind if you take photos during the tour?

ChgoMike wrote:Do they mind if you take photos during the tour?

Funny that you ask that-- I noticed that not a single person brought a camera (I wish that I did!!) but I doubt they would mind. You can ask when you make the reservation.

Your tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about all aspects of coffee and Intelligentsia's business functions... and that is really a good thing for a tour guide...