Coffee Obsessed

Intelligentsia is widely known for providing high quality brews for the coffee obsessed. This house blend from Intelligentsia is their signature and a great way to start up the review process on a wide range of Intelligentsia blends. The Intelligentsia House Blend is a smooth, medium bodied coffee that offers hints of fruit, milk chocolate and caramel with a finishing of baked apples.

According to Intelligentsia:

This blend offers up subtle fruit notes, a slight chocolaty sweetness, and a lively yet pleasant brightness. The medium-bodied brew is a perfect introduction to our coffees.

Our feeling is that the House Blend should be a flagship creation—one designed to expressively represent our approach to Specialty coffee in both the cup and with regard to sustainability. We remodel it throughout the year using only Direct Trade coffees to maintain our commitment to seasonality and quality. Therefore, all of the coffees come from farms and cooperatives with which we are directly and personally involved—ensuring that the growers are benefiting from the fruits of their labor just as much as we benefit from the taste.

The idea behind the House Blend is to make it both stimulating and comforting. There is a balance that must be reached where the flavor, acidity, body and finish coexist seamlessly and make the drinking experience an especially soothing one while preserving the nuance and dynamic flavor articulation that define quality coffees. It is designed to be enjoyed at any time, morning or evening, providing the sturdiness and well-rounded attribute sought after in House blends.

Intelligentsia House Blend Review

• Catuai, Bourbon, Caturra Grown at 1,550 – 1,850 M
• This medium-bodied blend offers subtle fruit notes with milk chocolate and caramel close behind. the balanced acidity finished with notes of baked apples.
• El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico
• Roasted on 12.01.09

When first opening the Intelligentsia House Blend coffee, you are hit with a nice smell of coffee bean with a slight hint of chocolate (at least that is what my nose was picking up on). That carried on to the post brew aroma as the House Blend kept its “not too strong” well balanced complexion.

The Intelligentsia House Blend is really what I expect out of a well-rounded house blend. It wasn’t too harsh with subtle tastes of caramel and fruit that doesn’t over take the taste of the coffee bean itself. Going down, the coffee is very smooth making it an ideal cup for those that really like coffee, but are not into the darker blends. The House Blend can be used as a morning or night blend just as the description out of Intelligentsia points out and would be a great coffee for when you are having guests as it would taste great to a wide variety of coffee lovers (regardless of how they take their coffee).

When it boils down to it…the House Blend from Intelligentsia is a well rounded blend that would be great for brunch or dinner parties. Those that are really into trying out different shades of coffee are going to want to dive into the other blends that Intelligentsia has to offer to really get their obsession met.

More on the Intelligentsia House Blend from Intelligentsia.com