A few months ago an email came to us asking, "hey, do you guys like coffee?"
In what seemed like moments after the obvious reply, “yes,” a box arrived containing several bags of Intelligentsia's finest, freshly roasted & Burr-ground.* They were labeled Stones Throw Blend, Quasimoto Blend, Madlib Blend and Peanut Butter Wolf Blend.
Madlib got a bag of espresso, and not long afterwards finished 15 new beat tapes. Coincidence? You be the judge. Needless to say a friendship was formed.
Intelligentsia is like the Stones Throw of coffee roasters. They do their homework, deal directly with their farmers (bettering hundreds of lives in the process of getting those Arabica beans to their Chicago and East L.A. Roasting facilities), and churn out seasonal blends and single-estate offerings like we hock 7s and CDs. They even have a single-estate espresso. That’s the coffee equivalent of compiling Bruce Haack’s vocoder work onto one CD. (We’re doing that next.)
At Stones Throw's show in Chicago on April 30, and a few other locations on the tour, we'll have a few bags of Intelligentsia's custom-made Stones Throw House Blend. Want some? Check out the merch table. Buy something. Ask about the coffee. We'll see what's up.
*That's the way they grind it, yo.