A bag of Untold Coffee Lab coffee at the recent SCA Expo in Houston. Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.
A new seller of ultra-premium green and roasted coffees called Untold Coffee Lab is now trying to spread the word one rare bag at a time.
The company, which roasts and ships from Rochester, New York, is emerging from a soft-launch period, offering auction microlot coffees, award-winning coffees and other high-end coffees.
Founded by a group of coffee industry veterans from throughout the Americas, Untold Coffee Lab is offering relatively small wholesale quantities, as well as direct-to-consumer bags of greens or roasted beans in quantities ranging from 100 grams (3.52 ounces) up to 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds).
The selection of beans comes from Panama, Brazil, Colombia and Guatemala, including coffees resulting from direct partnerships with producers for experimentation. Some of the coffees have been used to win green coffee competitions, while others have been used by baristas and roasters to win roasting and brewing competitions.
Untold Coffee Lab courtesy photo.
Untold protects the quality of its limited inventory by briefly resting new arrivals and then carefully repackaging, vacuum-sealing and freezing coffees at -11 degrees Fahrenheit.
Pre-shipping prices currently range from $10 for 100 grams of one green coffee to $1,235 for the roasted, 1-kilo bag of the “Panama Longboard Geisha Washed Misty Mountain” coffee, as of this writing.
“I’m always learning in the industry. I have great friends like George Howell and at Proud Mary, and I look up to them,” Untold Coffee Lab Co-Founder, Green Buyer and Head Roaster Danilo Lodi told Daily Coffee News. “One of the things that we’re doing, that I learned from them many years ago, is to rest [coffees] a little bit after they arrive, then I vacuum seal and freeze them, because I want freshness and I want to keep those coffees beautiful for as long as possible.”
A past judge of World Coffee Championships, Lodi has also coached some high-profile competitors, including 2023 World Barista Champion Boram Um and 2012 World Barista Champion Raul Rodas.
Lodi said he recently pulled a two-year-old coffee from the freezer for a competitor that landed in second place in another high-profile competition this year.
Untold Coffee Lab Co-Founder, green buyer and roaster Danilo Lodi. Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.
“I want to break down this myth about old crops. If you freeze those high-end coffees, it doesn’t matter,” said Lodi. “Sam Corra from Nucleus Coffee Tools [and] Link gave me a coffee in 2021, a Eugenioides that Matt Winton competed with, and I still have it in my freezer, and it still tastes amazing.”
Lodi creates roast profiles for all of Untold’s offerings. Production roasts are carried out in Rochester, with a Stronghold S7X machine for the smaller batches and an S9 machine for larger runs.
Lodi is one of seven founders of the business, which technically launched last year. The group includes: Justin Boudeman, owner and founder of Panamanian coffee producer Longboard Specialty Coffee; Francesco M. Bernasconi, formerly of espresso machine company Dalla Corte; Julio Villasmil, the founder of equipment distribution company Infumás, and several members of the Salzman family, who are behind the Rochester-based coffee equipment company Whole Latte Love.
While remaining distinct as a company and brand, Whole Latte Love is collaborating closely with Untold, buying some higher volumes of slightly lower-scoring coffees from the same producers as the super-premium Untold selections.
Untold Coffee Co-Founder Todd Salzman said the new business is in part designed to make the highest echelons of coffee available to more consumers.
The founders of Untold Coffee Lab. Courtesy photo.
“My passion for this came from understanding the coffees and how great they are, and how to get them into the hands of people like me, at home,” Todd Salzman told DCN. “Yes, we’d like to sell larger quantities, but we’re set up so that you can actually go on our website and buy 100 grams of a Longboard Geisha natural from Misty Mountain. No place else can you do that. We’ve made that really attainable to everybody, not just the cafes and coffee shops.”
Lodi said Untold may soon also venture deeper into customized wholesale services for sourcing and roasting. Clients may specify cup characteristics, quantity, geography or price range, and Lodi can try to hunt it down, he said.
“Not only for competitors, but for coffee shops that say, ‘I really want a variety from a specific country. On your next trip there, can you try to find something for me?'” Lodi said. “If I find something, I’ll just purchase it myself. It’s easy for me to do the importing for them and then I just give that to them, like a broker-for-hire, for these high-end coffees.”
Other goals for Untold include bringing more farms and producers into its sourcing network, while potentially helping to raise the quality bar for coffee drinkers everywhere.
“These kinds of coffees that I want to work with, they’re not very volume-oriented. My main goal with the company in the U.S. is, I want to see this market grow,” said Lodi. “I want to go to every city in the U.S. and drink an amazing cup of coffee. I want to see those 90-point coffees everywhere.”
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
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