Behind the Scenes of 0 Dark 30
November 15th, 2010
In August, I received a delightful email from an enthusiastic coffee loving customer. Verlyn has been our customer since 2006 and enjoys taking our single-origin coffees and creating his own blends at home. His endeavor at the time he wrote to me was developing a blend similar to our true Mocha Java coffee. To quote:
I have for years now blended 50/50 your Dark Sumatra with your Sumatra Mandheling. I find it very satisfying with a pleasant sweet lingering aftertaste.
For years I have been attempting to develop a blend to my own taste based on various Mocha Java blends…. This order, I have blended your true Mocha Java, Papua New Guinea, and Columbian Supremo beans [specific details masked to protect this proprietary recipe!]. It has resulted in a very smooth, rich, satisfying, aromatic cup of coffee with a lingering aftertaste that leaves my salivary glands in overdrive. It is now 25 minutes since my last cup and I am still trying to drown myself.
I shared the email with people in the office – including our Roastmaster – and we were all intrigued. Our Roastmaster blended together Verlyn’s recipe we had an official cupping — brewed in a large French press and served black, so all its complexities would come through.
Wow. This was one fine cup of coffee! Clearly, we needed to get this new blend on the website so everyone could experience this fabulous blend discovery of Verlyn’s.
First step – we needed a name. In deference to his brother Mike’s valuable input in developing the blend, Verlyn first suggested MJP House Supreme. We certainly liked that idea (and the fact that the name did not give away the components of the blend!), however, I’d noticed among the email addresses being copied on our discussion, many (including Verlyn’s) had a “mil” extension. Strains of an old song I’d first heard on M.A.S.H. starting floating through my head:
The COFFEE that they give us, they say is mighty fine,
It’s good for cuts and bruises, and tastes like iodine.
Oh, I don’t want no more of Army Life,
Gee Mom I wanna go home.
This was definitely NOT army coffee – let’s make that perfectly clear!– but we wanted to work in Verlyn’s (and his family & friends’) military service if we could. When we proposed that direction to Verlyn, he and I proceeded on a several-day long conversation, brainstorming many ideas:
I would surely hesitate to call it “Veterans Blend” or “Military Blend”. Anyone who has drunk mess hall coffee would never buy it….
“Old Sergeants’ Master Blend”? Shorten to “Old SGTs’ Master Blend”. Or flatter me and remove the “Old”. I’m only 67 after all.
How about “Sergeants Stripes”? And perhaps a logo of Master Sergeant stripes in red, white and blue similar to some of the political logos of the last election hinting at the flag without actually depicting it.
Unaware that this e-conversation was going on, one day our Roastmaster (himself of a military family, with a grandfather who was a Marine) stopped by my desk and suggested, “That new blend of Verlyn’s – how about, “Zero Dark Thirty blend?” To quote Wiki:
“It is Military slang. It is usually used to refer to any time when the sun isn’t up, usually between midnight and 4 am or so. Most operations start at Oh dark thirty, much earlier than a normal ‘person’ would think civilized.”
Right away, I sent that idea off to our Creative Director (aka, Verlyn) and he was hugely enthusiastic:
I like it! Though I would verbalize it as “0 (oh) Dark Thirty! Boy, do GIs relate to that! Nice play on words with the “Dark” as it is a dark colored blend. But, “Zero” removes any doubt as to whether you are referring to a number or a letter. He dun good! Sounds like he might have a little Ex GI in him………. The kind of cup that makes that early AM “get’n up” bearable.
He’s thinking AM and I was thinking kicked back at day’s end. But it’s good on either end of the day though the caffeine may make it hard to sleep for some. Definitely a morning eye opener, though.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Or, perhaps, future!
