After being introduced to the Intelligentsia Coffee family, we realized that a lot of our goals as a company were aligned.

First and foremost, we take pride in creating our actual products in the USA. While we are manufacturing and QC’ing every single hat, in our factory located in Lincoln Heights, Intelligentsia is taking the time to roast all of their coffee beans, meticulously creating and inspecting their product, right down the street from us. Control over the process of actually creating the perfect hat, or creating the perfectly roasted coffee bean means ultimately providing a better suited product for our respective customers.

We’ve found a strong commonality in our ability to leave no details untouched.

This collaboration is a celebration of the idea that the customer deserves to buy into more than just the product that a brand offers, whether that be a freshly brewed cup of coffee or a hat, fresh off the production line. We are happy to present to you a fine collaboration for the end of 2011. Look for Quintin Co. select coffee soon on our online store.

These hats are available now at all Intelligentsia stores as well as on the Intelligentsia website. We also have a few online here.

If you follow us on twitter and facebook…. and instagram, you’ve seen us talk about a little project we’ve been working on with Intelligentsia aka the supreme coffee makers.

We were lucky enough to get an in-depth warehouse tour, as well as a cupping session in with Geoff Watts. He’s the world’s best coffee taster… literally. Here’s a bonus fact on Geoff… he’s travelled down “Death Road” to bring you the best beans that Bolivia has to offer. I’d call that dedication.

I can’t really properly convey how impressed we were with their operation. Everything, from their ridiculous quality control process (cuppings at store locations and their roasting works), to their roasting process and their worldwide vendor relationships. Anyways, here are some pics I took on my iPhone, using my olloclip!

This is where the world’s best coffee is roasted, right here in Los Angeles, CA

What’s the machine over there for, you ask? This is where Intelligentsia roasts all the beans (for west coast consumption) they scour the earth for. I’ve been told it’s the Cadillac of coffee makers. Forged from German metal workers in the 1940′s, this machine requires a person to gauge how much air and heat to let into the machine, where most roasting machines these days are heavily automated and digitized.

The whole place smelled like this!

Off to the cupping we went… you know Kevin Porter loves to geek out on coffee.

We were handed a ratings sheet to try out about 8 different types of beans. The ratings sheet consisted of how the beans smell after they are ground up (the fragrance), how they smell after pouring hot water into the cup (the aroma), and most importantly, the taste. I think I put down chocolate for like half of my answers. YEAH, I LIKE CHOCOLATE, SO WHAT?!?!

Geoff then poured in water that was at the perfect tempurature and pH balance for coffee. THEY MAKE THEIR OWN WATER!!!

Smell-o-vision can’t come to the internet fast enough… mmmmmm…

Finally! The taste test! Gimme some of that coffee!

Our coffee bean selection process is now done! You’ll have to wait to see what we picked! Two companies who heavily invest in making actual product in the good ol’ USA and Kevin Porter… how’s this all mash together and what does it all mean? You can wait on an official press release from us, or get in on the Antenna mag collaborative efforts project when it comes to LA to find out!

Many of you may not know but we love our coffee here at Quintin. We have been working quite closely with the good folks over at Intelligentsia coffee for some time on a certain project that we will release towards the holidays.

We realized that a lot of our goals as companies were aligned. First and foremost, we take pride in creating our products in the USA. While we are manufacturing and QC’ing every single hat, in our factory located in Los Angeles. Intelligentsia is taking the time to roast all of their coffee beans, meticulously creating and inspecting their product, right down the street from us. Control over the process of actually creating the perfect hat, or creating the perfectly roasted coffee bean means ultimately providing a better suited product for our customers. We’ve found a strong commonality in our ability to leave no details untouched.

This past weekend the Intelligentsia crew hosted their ECW event in Los Angeles. The ECW or Extraordinary Coffee Workshop, the primary goal of this event is to unite growers who have made a serious commitment to quality coffee. Baristas, roasters, buyers, farmers and agronomists gather together in one place to learn from one another. Anyhow we were asked to create some hats and t’s for the event which we were excited to do and help support this great event as well as the good people over at the Intelligentsia brand. If you want to find out more about the ECW check out this website.

Check out this video from the 2010 ECW.

Also Travel + Leisure magazine just rated Intelligentsia as one of America’s coolest coffee houses. So big congrats to Intelli on that!If you want to read about that click here.

Kevin Porter is a good friend of the Quintin brand as well as Intelligentsia coffee. Here is a small edit of him in the roasting room with Intelligentsia. We love our coffee!