Past Blend—Our Second Collection with NIGO®

Time happens all at once, forever. 

The Past is here. It’s happening. The Past Blend, that is. In April 2021, Blue Bottle launched a series of collaborations with iconic creator NIGO®, founder of cult streetwear brand HUMAN MADE. We’ve now invited NIGO® to utilize his conceptual skills to create a new collection with us.

The Past Blend started with a prompt from NIGO® to do something a little more classic, which made us think of another idea from NIGO®: look for the future in the past. With this in mind, we decided to look to Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Kevin Thaxton, our Senior Quality and Innovation Manager, Asia, meditated on this idea: 

"Ethiopian coffee has a long, rich history and speaks to coffee’s beginning, but it’s still very much relevant today and will continue to be relevant in the future.”

Taking this as his starting place, Kevin explored roasting a single origin coffee from Ethiopia in two ways: darker to bring out its maple-like sweetness and berry notes, and lighter, for floral nuance.

The result is an unexpected spectrum of flavor that would be impossible to experience from one coffee at one roast level. The Past Blend is like a bridge—between the past, present, and future, and between the very idea of what is a single origin versus a blend. 

To accompany Past Blend, NIGO® has also created a chic and minimal black t-shirt and cap with the Blue Bottle logo. The collection is made with the style, quality, and care HUMAN MADE is known for. The Past Blend coffee, cap, and t-shirt will be available for purchase on our US and Japan online sites (bluebottlecoffee.com and bluebottlecoffee.jp) starting July 20, 2021.