Antipodean coffee has long been the envy of our northern hemisphere counterparts and it all starts with the roasters. Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington is blessed with a creative and innovative coffee roasting scene and, while you can hardly go wrong with any locally roasted coffee, here are a few of our favourites to seek out when you’re in town.
If you happened to be a coffee drinker in 1993, you’ll know that more than a few things have changed. That was the year that the industry legends behind Coffee Supreme set up shop for the first time at a tiny Willis Street cafe called Reds.
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SUBSCRIBE NOWWhen their coffee roaster went into liquidation, owners Chris Dillon and Maggie Wells started roasting their own under the Coffee Supreme name and the industry hasn’t really been the same since. These days you’ll find their beans all across New Zealand and Australia but, when in Wellington, head to their cafes on Ghuznee Street in Te Aro and Waring Taylor Street in the CBD.
Richard Corney, Matt Graylee and Nick Clark founded Flight Coffee in 2009 with the express purpose of improving the roasting and sourcing of coffee in Aotearoa. Flight now has coffee farms in South America and research and training centres back in New Zealand, but to truly get a sense of what Flight Coffee has achieved, head to its flagship Te Aro venue, the Hangar.
You can get Flight flights (that’s three flat whites, filters or espressos brewed with different beans and blends) and an all-day menu of cafe classics like a bacon butty with a fried egg, cheese and chilli jam.
Behind its signature, eye-popping design, Good Fortune Coffee Co is a roastery focused very much on the human impact of coffee. Flavour is important, and you’ll find plenty of it (the Firecracker blend is likened to an exploding Whittaker's Peanut Slab), but fair trade and paying a living wage is the other side of the coin.
Good Fortune’s home is in Petone on the northern shore of Wellington Harbour but, when in the city, get your fix at the Grocer’s Shed in Island Bay.
Karamu’s philosophy starts with sourcing fair trade organic beans but there are a few other tricks up the Gracefield-based roaster’s sleeve. To keep harmful nitrogen oxides to a minimum, Karamu uses a specialised hot air roasting machine which also has the advantage of limiting those harsher, burnt flavour by-products.
The typically smooth roasts feature beans from regions like Nueva Segovia in Nicaragua and Chiapas in Mexico and, if you want to give them a try, can be found pouring at Wellington’s Dunshea's Deli and Green Land Cafe.
When Havana started roasting in 1990, there were just four roasters in all of New Zealand, meaning owners Geoff Marsland and Tim Rose found the same problem as Coffee Supreme: the general quality of coffee was terrible.
Although it’s a packed market now, these early trailblazers are still leading the way in innovative roasting, using a low emissions hot air roaster that started with a custom-built prototype back in 1990 and sourcing fair trade beans from around the globe. Visit their avo-green, art deco headquarters on Tory Street in Te Aro if you want to drink their pioneering brews at the source.
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