Rich Coffee Roasters
Bean of the Month
Welcome back to Bean of the Month: a monthly-ish review of coffee I think you should try.
2024 brings a different kaupapa to BOTM. This year, my goal is to showcase coffee from roasters I haven’t tried before, or haven’t had in a while. I want to lift my gaze above the regular roasters I drink, and explore the wonderful roasters we have across Aotearoa.
This month I’d like to introduce to you: Rich Coffee Roasters
Rich Coffee Roasters
Somewhere between the hustle and bustle of Wellington City and its wild southern coast, sits a ramshackle mish-mash of a building. Picture rusting corrugated iron cladding, red doors and a pathed carpark that might have been level once, but the jury is still out.
At first glance, you wouldn’t expect to find one of the best and most consistent coffee roasters in Aotearoa. But there Rich Coffee Roasters stands, a rose among thorns. A shining light in an otherwise dark and desolate place (I think I’m just talking about Wellington now… surely not).
Rich Coffee Roasters is the love-child of Cameron McClure and Richie Russell. After first connecting in Christchurch “way back when”, they both ended up in London where their coffee relationship bloomed.
They then ended up back in Wellington where they chose to launch a roastery in one of the most competitive coffee markets in the world.
What makes Rich Coffee stand out from the others across the motu, is their philosophy towards roasting. Instead of leaving their own mark and style on a particular coffee, they focus on doing what’s right for the coffee.
Cam told me that “The idea was like don’t have any hard and fast rules for roasting - just try and serve the coffee. We think [that approach] is going to showcase all its best attributes that the farmers have put so much work into.”
“If we can be quite transparent on what’s in the coffee, then we’ve sort of done our job.”
While this approach isn’t rare across the roasting world, that fact they have stayed true to this philosophy through out the years, really makes Rich Coffee stand out.
It’s not an easy approach to stay true to. Customers tend to develop preferences that roasters can bend to, rather than getting the best out of each coffee. You could argue that delivering on your customers demands is a smart business decision, but you’d do that at the risk of missing out on something truly special.
“It’s a battle because you look at a type of coffee, you look at its density and the farmer and you kind of might have an idea where it will go. And quite often it’s close to that” said Cam.
“But sometimes it’s completely different than that, so the though behind Rich Coffee was just to serve the coffee really well.”
This approach, at least to me as a coffee lover, means each coffee I get will be different to the last. Even for coffees from the same farm, I’m always in for a new experience, knowing that the team at Rich Coffee have got the absolute best out of it.
You could call that ‘inconsistency’. I call that exciting and innovative. Sure the flavours change, but the quality doesn’t.
The roasting scene has changed a lot since 2015. There was a massive boom in specialty coffee roasters across the country, leading to more competition. Then COVID came and tough economic times followed.
It would have been easy for Rich Coffee to slash prices, increase production and try get into everyone’s cups, not unlike Coffee Supreme who you’ll now find in super markets across the country.
But Rich Coffee is built different.
“We’ve always though it’s never a race to the bottom. We kind of operate in a slightly different way where we were not at all aggressive. Our whole thing was to build a loyal customer base which we could maintain,” said Cam.
“And people come and go, still, people have their favorites. And we will always want to be like, we're happy being second or third, you know, like that. It's not like a race to be the most visible or race to be the most cheapest - that's where it gets dicey.”
The economic downturn has hit coffee roasters differently, but Rich Coffee remains optimistic.
“I genuinely feel for a lot of the companies, I mean, especially during COVID and stuff where it really got really tricky, depending on your business models. It must have been so hard - that would have been just absolutely like awful.
“I love the coffee industry so much that I don't want to see anyone not do well.
“It's not recession proof coffee, that's for sure. It's a natural cycle. [But] Coffee will bounce back .”
Having an amazing product paired with incredible skill and passion certainly helps.
I’ve had many incredible coffees from Rich Coffee Roasters over the years. I’ve recently had the Kenyan Kamwangi, Brasil Fazenda Sertao, and a wicked bag of Cascara. But my absolute highlight was the the Ethiopia Della - my coffee of 2024 so far.
I tried a few versions of the Della from other roasters, and Rich Coffee was by far the best one.
Not surprising really. They continue to smash it out of the park, year after year.
And spoiler alert, it sounds like they’ll have the Della back at some point.
Origami Brew Up
All the Della brews were excellent, but the Origami had to be my favourite.
It was able to highlight the delicate, almost tea like notes of this excellent coffee, and accentuate the beautiful characteristics that Ethiopian coffees are renowned for.
Here’s how I brewed it:
15g coffee - on the finer side of medium-fine
250g water - 85 degrees
Five pours - 50g each. Start with a bloom for 30 seconds, and then pour every 20 seconds.
The five pour brew method gives some additional agitation, which was great for this coffee.
To wrap things up, I asked Cam who his favourite roaster is right now. This answer really sums Cam’s personality up, and is totally on brand for the overall vibe that he and Richie have gone for.
“I've been loving Silver Skin Coffee.
“I've always had a real soft spot for Rocket Coffee.
“Red Rabbit, love those guys.
“Even what Frank's doing real awesome. More of that please. Totally love what the guy is doing.
“Yeah, there's heaps of people like, even like when I came back to New Zealand I definitely I chose to put my CV out just for the places that I thought I would I'd like to work at and I settled on Supreme in the end. I love what those guys do. I think their brands like just looks so good. I just think aesthetically that one of the the brands that made me really excited - just the look and stuff. I mean, that takes a lot of a lot of skill and a lot of work to do that. And I know those guys work super hard to maintain that.
“Yeah, I guess an absolute favorite? Yeah, I don't know if I could choose one. That's like choosing your favorite children.
But there's so many I will definitely missed out on a couple aye. Like I mean, even you know, even back in the Christchurch days, I used to love that Archie Coffee and it's the first coffee that turned me on to coffee.”
Back in the pre-COVID days, the roastery was open to the public on Saturdays. It was an amazing space - a celebration of the passion that Rich Coffee puts into it’s coffee. Sadly for the public (but maybe good for Cam and Richie and their families), COVID put an end to that.
The community still thrives though - in the hearts, cafes and homes of coffee lovers across the country.
Cam and Richie are absolute legends. They’re amazing roasters, have created a fantastic product and are all time GCs (highlighted by the fact they still HAND DELIVER coffee around Wellington on Fridays. WHAT!)
You’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t get yourself a few baggies of coffee from them.
A massive shout out to Cam for his time and insights. This article could have been kept on going and going. It was an absolute pleasure to talk with him.