New Zealand

Walking into Havana Coffee Works, visitors will easily forget they are in the heart of Wellington. Instead, guests are transported to a Cuban oasis in the Caribbean, with rustic wooden furnishings and eclectic paraphernalia.

“I love Cuba and its grand opulent architecture, beautiful cars, music, cigars, and rum. Havana Coffee Works has got all that and more,” says Co-Founder Geoff Marsland, who travels to Cuba regularly.

Geoff and Co-Owner Tim Rose have been friends for years. In the late 1980s they met up in Vancouver, Canada and fell in love with the city’s late-night café culture. It inspired them to bring back a coffee machine to New Zealand. Together they opened Midnight Espresso in 1989, followed by Deluxe café three months later.

In order to manage a consistent supply of well-roasted coffee, Tim and Geoff started roasting their own coffee. To do so, they introduced New Zealand’s first fluid-bed hot air roaster, producing 150 kilograms a week.

In 1997 Geoff travelled to Cuba and met with the local coffee farmers. “In the early years of importing coffee we became part of the Fairtrade movement, but we got disillusioned and started Real Trade in the late 1990s,” says Geoff. “The concept is about establishing long-standing, close relationships with all the people involved in the production and distribution of green coffee from farm to café.”

Havana Coffee Works was born in 1989 as a dedicated coffee roasting business. The company now supplies coffee to more than 250 cafés in New Zealand. The Tory Street site roasts five tonnes a week on a 60-kilogram Petroncini hot air drum roaster, with electric blowers that supercharge the roast. The venue is inundated with visitors who flock to the adjoining Havana Lounge to savour their daily cup of coffee on a La Marzocco machine, or partake in one of the daily coffee training classes.

“We have an open door policy. People are welcome to come into the factory, workshop, training centre, or coffee bar talk to staff and try our coffee,” says Geoff. “Our coffee is great but our customer service and machine service are second to none too.”

Havana Coffee Works serves an extensive range of eight blends. Geoff says the standouts include the Afro Cuba, Krazy espresso blend, Organic, and Five Star blend, which is an all-round “crowd pleaser”.

Alternative brew methods are available, in addition to 14 single origin coffees, which Havana Coffee Works has imported for the past 20 years. Favourites include beans from Bolivia, and Cuba – of course.

In the past three years Geoff has also committed to planting 25,000 coffee trees on Tanna Island – his own direct supply in the Pacific.

“Our motto is ‘the coffee you feel’. After 25 years it still surprises me how much fun this industry is. We’re still riding the wave and we’re loving it,” Geoff says. “People can follow us on social media and go to our website, but there’s nothing better than a good old fashioned visit to Havana.”

On a trip to Paris, Marc Weir and his business partners Julie Clark and James Pedersen went to source items for their new venture. But they came back with nothing.

Instead, while Marc was recovering from jet lag and watching his favorite film A Single Man by Tom Ford, he had an epiphany. “I thought my gosh! We should definitely channel 1960s California like the film,” says Marc.

That film became the inspiration for Loretta’s design, which includes open spaces, clean lines, and timber furnishings. “I’ve operated my other restaurant business, Floriditas, for nine years. But I wanted to create a different, casual dining experience with no high-class expectations – just great service, great food, and exceptional coffee,” says Marc.

Loretta serves Coffee Supreme’s signature blend for milk-based coffees on its four-group San Marco 85 espresso machine. Two single origins from Coffee Supreme are also on rotation for drip filter, which Marc serves via a Fetco machine.They change monthly, but at the time of print included an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, which Marc describes as “smooth with flavours of blackcurrent and ginger”. The other is La Soledad, with caramel and orange blossom notes.

To cater to his customer’s large preference for milk-based coffees, Marc says he’s had to increase the range of milk they offer to include organic, full or trim milk, soy, rice and almond.

“Coffee has changed dramatically in Wellington over the past 20 years. Today there’s a refined and greater scientific application to the way coffee is served, and more boutique cafés are embracing this trend around Wellington,” says Marc.

To accompany the coffee, Loretta serves a detailed menu. Café favourites include the continental breakfast, carrot risotto with chervil or wood-fired sandwiches for lunch, and a broken chicken sausage pizza with shaved fennel and loads of fresh dill for dinner.

Growing up Marc wanted to be either a chef or a teacher. He was accepted into teacher college at a young age but his love for food crept back into his life. “I’ve developed my own ethos about food and I still strive for perfection in everything I do,” he says. “I love that this job is very hands on – perhaps it’s the teacher gene in me.”

During November 2013, Coffee Supreme’s flagship café in Auckland, Good One, underwent renovations, expanding their back street site to facilitate more of what they have been doing for the past five years.

“We took a bit of a gamble in breaking a few of hospitality’s golden rules; must have high-density daytime foot-traffic, visibility, and easy parking,” says Coffee Supreme’s Managing Director Al Keating. “Naturally, when we proposed to set up shop in an old manufacturing building down a skinny back street in Ponsonby, there were a few scoffs and eyebrows raised.” 

Good One first opened in 2008 to showcase Coffee Supreme in Auckland. “We’ve always believed there’s no better way to win friends and influence people than to sit them down at your own table with a mug of great coffee,” says Al. “So when we began trying to crack the Auckland market we figured we’d better start by building a table, and brewing some coffee.”

Visitors to Good One will enjoy abundant natural light, a customised Slayer Espresso machine, hand-painted signage, and ample splashes of Good One’s signature yellow throughout.

“The Good One brand takes inspiration from early 20th century American automotive packaging,” says Jonny Calder, Supreme Sales Manager and Project Designer.

Guests can sit and sip their brew among the extensive collection of over 4500 National Geographics. The earliest National Geographic on display dates back to 1917.

Since reopening, customers have been enjoying a simplified coffee menu with two contrasting coffees being brewed on a Fetco Batch brewer at any one time. This machine allows for complete control over brewing parameters and the production of consistent quality coffee.

“It’s slowly enticing people away from their regular espresso drink and into something new,” says Jonny. Good One baristas serve up Supreme’s signature blend, Supreme, as well as a single origin or seasonal blend, all through their customised glass-paneled Slayer.

The range of coffee is accompanied by savory and sweet treats made by Little & Friday.
For those looking to delve deeper into the origins of coffee, Good One hosts free coffee tastings in their new training room every Thursday morning.

In the heart of Christchurch is a café that resembles a Lego set more so than a café. But that’s the unique part of Hummingbird Central in Re:Start. It’s a life-size, pull-apart café.

Hummingbird Central was established in October 2011. It was built as part of a community initiative called Re:Start, to rebuild the culture of Christchurch’s CBD after the 2011 earthquake. “It’s been a very successful project and great for the city to get its atmosphere back,” says Nick Cowper, General Manager of New Zealand’s Hummingbird Coffee Roasters.

The temporary café is made out of 12-metre long shipping containers, overlapping each other in an eye-catching urban structure. “We only had eight weeks to convert the shipping containers into a café space. The pressure was immense,” says Nick. “I personally didn’t think it would get off the ground, but it’s been a great learning curve.”

Hummingbird Central was constructed as a temporary site, however, the café has increased its lease in Christchurch until 9 January 2014. “The best part about the concept is that its portable – all it takes is 48 hours to pick up and move somewhere else. We can pull it apart and put it back together again,” says Nick.

On a busy day the café serves about 700 to 800 coffees. They use a two-group La Scala coffee machine in the upstairs container and a three-group machine downstairs.

Hummingbird Central is the sister café to Oddfellow’s, also established by Hummingbird Coffee Roasters. Nick says it is the first company to import Fair Trade coffee into New Zealand.

“The two cafés are distinctly different, one has a lot of history and the other is developing its own history,” says Nick.

To coincide with the café opening, Hummingbird Coffee Roasters created a Fair Trade Organic blend called Re:Start, sold throughout New Zealand. The blend consists of six origins, which Nick describes as “gutsy, sweet with winey peaks”.

Thirty cents from each 200-gram pack of Re:Start blend sold is donated to the rebuilding of the Court Theatre in Christchurch, badly damaged by the earthquake.

A full commercial kitchen fits into the 57 square metres downstairs container. An outdoor seating area is also available for customers to take in the sun.

“The coffee industry is incredibly rewarding,” says Nick. “There’s always lot of challenges, but the biggest thing is getting the best product you can and seeing other people enjoy it. That gives me a great sense of pride.”