When Blair and Tayler Paterson opened their first Homebrew Coffee bar in 2019, front of mind was creating an energetic, exciting, and inviting atmosphere.
“When you come to Homebrew, it doesn’t just feel like you’re just here to get a coffee. You’re also here to hang out and catch up with friends,” Tayler says.
Before relocating to New Zealand with Kiwi husband Blair, Tayler worked for Dutch Bros Coffee in the United States. The coffee chain’s focus on atmosphere, customers, and signature drinks all served as inspiration for Homebrew Coffee.
“When we started the business, we knew the products we wanted to serve and feeling we wanted to create, but we didn’t have the skills to articulate that in the design,” Blair says. “We sat down with a good friend of ours, the owner of Designwell studio, who listened to what we wanted to achieve and visualised that in everything from our lightning bolt logo to an interior the conveys warmth, energy, excitement, and passion.”
Homebrew offers a selection of treats and pastries from Volare bakery, but coffee is the core of the business, serving the Empire blend and single origins from Ozone Coffee Roasters.
“We love the traditional drinks you’d find in the café, but also have a range of signature coffees that add a bit of flair,” Blair says. “The Caramel Kicker is caramel-infused latte, served hot and iced, and is really popular in both forms throughout the year. The vanilla-infused White Lightning is another popular drink.”
Early in 2021, Homebrew even introduced its own take on an energy drink, combining a green coffee bean extract (providing the caffeine) with a range of flavours and tossing it over soda water to create an entirely new type of beverage.
“You get an amazing rush from the drink, like you would for a typical energy drink, but don’t get the same low afterwards once the drink wears off,” Blair says. “It’s a creative and fun way to tweak what you’d normally find in a coffee bar, it’s the ‘Homebrew’ way of making coffee.”
Following the success of the Cambridge store, Homebrew was able to open a second location in Hamilton, sharing their unique take on coffee with even more of the community.
“We’re both passionate about coffee, but we’re more passionate about people and our goal was to create a culture of warmth, lovingness, and generosity,” Tayler says. “Two years later, Homebrew represents a lot of those things to us. Every single day we come to work knowing we love what we do and excited about what the day will hold.”
Homebrew Coffee
21 Victoria Street, Cambridge 3434, New Zealand
Open Monday to Friday 6:30am to 3:30pm, Saturday 7am to 2pm
This article appears in the June 2021 edition of BeanScene. Subscribe HERE
