After competing in multiple National Barista Championships and working as a sales representative in the coffee industry, Long Nguyen developed an ambition to bridge the gap between specialty coffee and mainstream consumers.

Out of this dream Café New Chapter was born in Wellington, New Zealand.

“In the specialty coffee community, we talk about and appreciate specialty coffee, but a lot of people in the public don’t understand the story behind it and how much passion goes into every cup,” Long says.

Long sources his coffee from Rocket Coffee Roasters. He changes the house blend regularly and rotates his single origin offering.

“Rocket Coffee Roasters is one of the most famous specialty coffee roasters in NZ. It’s a boutique roaster that produces great coffee,” he says.

“At the moment I’m using a 50-50 blend of two Colombian beans, but recently I was using a 60 per cent Guatemalan and 40 per cent Colombian. We change the blend often so customers always have a taste of the best coffee bean in harvesting season from all around the world. That means our coffee tastes consistently good.”

In addition to traditional coffee beverages, Long serves a range of coffee cocktails which blend single origin coffees with creative and unique flavours, including the Sunrise, a cold brew mixed with hibiscus soda and mineral water poured over ice.

“We’re probably the first ones in Wellington to do it. People were quite conservative at the start but now, on a hot day, we sell quite a few,” Long says.

The café uses a La Marzocco Linea PB espresso machine serve coffee and two grinders, a Victoria Arduino Mythos One and a Mahlkönig EK 43S.

Café New Chapter is located next to the Wellington train station, one of the busiest areas of the city. The shop space is designed to create a welcoming yet rustic and industrial environment.

“When we created the place, we kept sustainability in mind. We reused a lot of floorboards and have 2.5-metre flowers hanging off the ceiling. It’s gorgeous,” Long says.

Café New Chapter
5 Bunny Street,
Wellington CBD, Wellington, 6012
Open Monday to Friday 6:30am to 3:30pm
0472 5919