For our 20th Anniversary we are picking up a 'Golden Oldie' by printing the original Mister LGB name and logo back on the info card.
The ingredients:
1/2 Uganda BULAMBULI
1/4 Honduras EL PINTO
1/3 Kenya GATINA AB
For more info on the what and the why you can pick up the info card or read the story online.
The story behind the Mister LGB is pretty long and the start takes us back to 2009.
I was building a blend for our Caffenation Barista Championship contester Roeland Lenaerts and couldn’t find a name.
At Caffenation we were racking our brains over this and after many days and dozens of failed suggestions the barista himself came up with the, now historic, name 'LITTLE GREEN BAG'.
The word ‘green’ related to the fact the first version was build with organic coffees only.
I liked the name 'Little Green Bag' immediately for several reasons:
I was a big fan of Walter Mosley, an black American crime writer who always used a color in the name of the books he wrote, with Ezekiel 'Easy' Rawlins as the main character, brilliantly played by Denzel Washington in the movie adaptation of the first book in the series ‘Devil in a Blue Dress’.
On top of that the name was stolen from the George Baker Selection radio hit ‘Little green bag’.
A song that gained world wide attention when Quentin Tarantino used it at the introduction of his characters in his first movie and underground classic Reservoir dogs. When I watched this movie as a young guy, just arrived in the city of Antwerp, I was totally blown away, and having a coffee blend for the championship with such a über cool name was in my opinion the coolest thing ever.
The blend became very famous and was mainly loved as the base for all milk drinks in our own or other bars, and even at home.
We didn't have specially designed bags for the blend, but that changed in August 2010.
It wasn’t more than logical when starting our own roastery in 2010 we still loved the title and idea behind the bag and had them printed in 250 and 1000 grams.
Here you see them on the shelf, next to the precursor of the brown Spro JOE bags, then black and called Single Origin Espresso - how original.
(in those days we even thought Colombia was written with a 'U'. 😆)
The blend ‘Little Green Bag’ was doing really fine for the first four years of roasting, but the name became problematic because there were not enough high quality organic lots available when we rebranded all the bags in 2014, and which still is the case in 2023.
The idea behind the move of transferring 'Little Green Bag' to 'Mister LGB' brings us back where it all began: Reservoir Dogs. All main characters are called Mister ..... and so did Mister LGB sound to us like a character out of a gangster movie.
Many years later it sounds like the beginning of LGBTQ, but that's only coincidence.
Enjoy the new blend, any way you drink or brew it and remember the lines of that great song by George Baker:
"Lookin' back on the track gonna do it my way.Lookin' back on the track for a little little green bag"