Signature Collection - Dany Marquis

During my eventful year, there have been a lot of thoughts and discussions about the coffee industry and the place that Brûlerie du Quai takes in the field. Brûlerie du Quai is evolving and becoming a true team effort, constantly in tune with feedback from our customers.

And in the development around our 3 coffee collections:

• Classic
• Prestige
• Select Reserve

we have been able to develop a super dynamic offering which will continue even better in 2020. But despite this fairly broad offering, certain questions keep coming back, creating a 4th unofficial collection .

Dany, what are your favorite coffees?

Dany, what are you drinking these days?

Even the other team members have to memorize my current caffeinated preferences and whims.

But now my bias and the favoritism that I can sometimes show has no real connection with the best coffees that we have in stock.

Of course, I like good things and have high standards, but when you have to choose, you also have to give up.

In the Réserve Selecte collection , we currently have an extraordinary and unique coffee offering. Whether it's the Rwanda Buliza purchased at the Cup of Excellence, or the Guatemala Ruby Geisha from El Injerto, or the Kenya Nyeri Ichamama.

Honestly, few roasters have the chance to work with so many good beans.

And that's without mentioning the little treasures that we sometimes find and which we place at a super good price like the Brazil Montanari which is now out of print and which has pleased a lot of people.

You will understand that in evolving in such an abundance of good things, I must choose.

And when I'm at my office on Friday evening and before leaving, I remember that I have to bring coffee home, I find myself faced with a real dilemma.

Which coffee to choose?

What coffee would I feel like drinking on Saturday morning while listening to my favorite podcasts?

I look at the filled shelves and have access to any of my coffees. What a privilege you will tell me! And I am very aware and grateful for that.

And it’s this hard decision that I’ve been repeating 52 weeks a year for several years now.

So it was with an embryo of an idea in the back of my mind that I moved forward during the year, making a few trips to some of my producer partners.

And this year, these trips were particularly inspiring. They all had a very personal color. For them, Brûlerie du Quai or Chaleur B Chocolat are vague entities with names that are difficult to pronounce. It is therefore with Dany Marquis that they work. And because direct purchase selections often involve a lot of money, risk and mutual trust, my suppliers want to know who they're working with. And vice versa.

It was a kind of revelation, because it has been happening this way for several years now. The development of a 4th collection was born, despite me.

What is Dany drinking?

Did Dany buy anything from her trip to Jamaica?

Did he return to Rwanda?

Did he receive the coffee from Honduras?

It almost becomes irritating for the other members of the team who are also involved in the quality process. Humility is an important value for me and I must say that I had a little difficulty accepting the idea of ​​seeing an eponymous coffee collection appear.

So I let myself be convinced, seduced above all by the idea of ​​the pleasure of sharing what makes me feel good. For me, few things make me as happy as the simple pleasure of drinking coffee with all five senses. Sharing this feeling with the people around me is what convinced me.

The goal of this collection is simple, to help you taste coffees that thrill me, that are authentic and that transport me.

Note that this is a very personal selection. And it corresponds to what I choose on Friday evening as I finish my week thinking about what I want to drink the next morning.

It is not a race for perfection, but rather the search for a simple pleasure, like a love which evolves, in its share of imperfections and which ends up finding a sweet harmony.

You will find coffees in this collection that make me smile with happiness after every sip.

They are chosen whether for the aromatic profile, the relationship I have with the producers, my admiration for their approach and their work or a memory I have of an evening of tropical rain sharing a cold beer after a day climbing impossible mountains.

So it’s a mix of subjective and quality. I give myself the right to make a collection as I imagine the world of coffee. Each of these coffees has its own personality and history, which adds a touch of magic to the cup.

And it is this magic that I want to share with you.

So I present to you my three current favorites:

• Typica Clifton Mount Estate Blue Mountain Jamaica
• Geisha La Esmeralda Panama
• Catuai 44 Sitio Monte Sinai Brazil

I invite you to consult the files of each café for the description. Note that I worked with a different packaging from the other collections. A glass bottle, worthy of the best spirits. The neck is closed hermetically and poured into wax to create a completely airtight seal and to preserve the aromas of the coffee as much as possible. The bottle is then placed in a box containing a booklet which explains the process and the reason why this coffee is part of my personal collection.

For too long, ordinary coffee has been packaged in beautiful packaging claiming that it was great vintages. Many coffee merchants have thus broken the relationship of trust between roasters and consumers.

I find that shocking.

And that's another reason why I launched my collection. Trust. Signature.

As in my relationships with partners, beyond the brand, the value of my team, putting my name on a coffee is for me a significant guarantee of my involvement.

Also note that I continue to work on other collections which occupy a special place in our caffeinated ecosystem.

So, that’s it for this new collection. I wish you a good tasting!

Danny Marquis