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Speaker 1: In the country that loves coffee, could we grow more?

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Speaker 1: And actually, for your decent size producer, do you realize

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Speaker 1: we grow coffee in this country? The far North is

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Speaker 1: where you find all the beans. We got twelve grows

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Speaker 1: apparently about seven thousand plants anyway. Peter Shepherd is the

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Speaker 1: chair of the New Zealand Coffee Produces Association. Peter morning,

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Speaker 1: Good morning mate. The twelve growers. Is that stable or

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Speaker 1: is that increasing?

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Speaker 2: That's actually increasing at quite a rate. Lots of people

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Speaker 2: are starting to plant a few plants and find the

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Speaker 2: right soils in the right places to grow coffee. So

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Speaker 2: that's going to grow quite a lot in the coming years.

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Speaker 1: All the far North so far, all the fine.

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Speaker 2: Norths because it has to be frost free. And you

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Speaker 2: know there's a really great microclimate right up in the

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Speaker 2: Far North which pretty much ensures that.

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Speaker 1: And so see, I'm a coffee fanatic, but I didn't

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Speaker 1: even know we made it. What does it taste like

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Speaker 1: compared with the stuff we would get from Ethiopia or

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Speaker 1: Brazil wherever? Is it unique?

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Speaker 2: Yes? Well, the whole way that the coffee industry is

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Speaker 2: going make is to have specialist coffees and these can

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Speaker 2: be brewed in different ways and including fermentations of the

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Speaker 2: beans before the process. And so what we're going for

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Speaker 2: is that really high value specialty market, collaborating with wine

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Speaker 2: industry on some of the yeasts, for example, to get

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Speaker 2: these unique flavors that create these really high value products.

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Speaker 1: Wow. And so you sell what domestically you export?

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Speaker 2: Well, there's a couple of places selling domestically at the moment,

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Speaker 2: but our long term aim is to go for that

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Speaker 2: high value global market wherever it might be, to create

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Speaker 2: a really high value industry here.

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Speaker 1: Have you got a volume problem at the moment with

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Speaker 1: just twelve gras and seven thousand plants? I mean, is

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Speaker 1: exporting a realistic possibility not for a.

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Speaker 2: Couple of years. But we want to a walk before

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Speaker 2: we get run, so to speak. So we're learning as

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Speaker 2: we go to make the highest quality product we can.

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Speaker 2: At the moment, the stuff that's available helps pretty quickly

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Speaker 2: to you know, enthusiastic coffee lovers around the country, like

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Speaker 2: all these things that takes a few years. Plants take

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Speaker 2: a while to grow, but there's huge potential here and

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Speaker 2: you know, we're on the beginning of a really exciting journey.

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Speaker 1: Are you looking at buy products and if you are,

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Speaker 1: what are.

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Speaker 2: They absolutely you know, the pulp that comes off be

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Speaker 2: turned into a tea, for example, and that's you know,

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Speaker 2: you can buy that from other places around the world

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Speaker 2: as well. We're looking at processing that also in the

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Speaker 2: Far North into valuable products.

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Speaker 1: Interesting well, and we're stable in that sense because of

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Speaker 1: course the reason the price of coffee's gone up is climatically.

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Speaker 1: It's a little bit of an issue globally at the moment,

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Speaker 1: isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely? And I think that's what brings us into play here.

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Speaker 2: And now you know, we're in a zone now thirty

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Speaker 2: five degrees south in the sort of Kaitaia region where

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Speaker 2: you know the climate is now over the last twenty

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Speaker 2: to thirty years got warm enough actually to make this

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Speaker 2: extremely viable.

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Speaker 1: Fantastic, Peter go well it. We'll stay in touch. Peter Sheppard,

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Speaker 1: who's the chair of the New Zealand Coffee Producers Association.

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Speaker 1: My new venture at the moment is is roasting beans.

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Speaker 1: I'm up there this weekend roasting second batch. I've roasted

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Speaker 1: so far one hundred and twenty grams, which does which

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Speaker 1: doesn't make me one of the bigger roasters. So I've

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Speaker 1: got one hundred and twenty grams, and I put it

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Speaker 1: in my ear tight container and I can absolutely delicious.

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Speaker 2: I mean, as Peter says, you've got a walk before

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Speaker 2: we can run exactly.

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Speaker 1: So I'm going to roast my second one hundred and

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Speaker 1: twenty grams this weekend, and so that will make me

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Speaker 1: up to having roasted a whole packet. And so I

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Speaker 1: got also this week by the way, an extender pack

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Speaker 1: for my roasting machine. So that allows me to basically

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Speaker 1: go commercial and probably roast maybe two hundred grams at

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Speaker 1: a time. So don't hold me back. It's all on.

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