Neil Hodgson
Nelson has a huge number of coffee roasters in the region, and they are all very good. But The Coffee Company, located at 130 Hardy St, next to Hardy St eatery, don’t roast their own beans, they specialise in providing the equipment you will need to make the perfect coffee and sell premium imported roasted coffee and other treats.
Coffee is an important part of my daily diet, so any business that can help me make a better coffee grabs my attention.
At The Coffee Company they have everything ‘‘from beans to machines and all the in-betweens’’ so last week I dropped in to chat with Ange Spori and James Graham, the son of owner Iain Graham, to find out about exactly what they do and what drives their passion for great coffee.
Iain was out of town when I dropped in to see them but Spori told me he has a horticultural background, having owned and operated several orchards around the Nelson district before changing direction in 2003.
That new direction was coffee, so he’s approaching 20 years of experience in the industry.
Spori says good coffee is in her DNA. ‘‘I have worked in hospitality most of my working life, both in New Zealand and overseas.’’
She has been working with coffee and coffee equipment now for more than 15 years, including spending time developing relationships with suppliers in Italy. When she was living in Switzerland for a few years she put her cooking and front of house skills to work, ‘‘but I had to start as a kitchen hand because I couldn’t speak the language – even though I had finished about half of my chef’s qualifications at NMIT while I was working in Nelson. I have always been addicted to coffee, but in Switzerland the coffee wasn’t great at the time. I had to travel 20 minutes to get a real espresso coffee.’’
She came back to Nelson and worked in various places on the waterfront as well as working for Iain part time.
‘‘He had started doing the coffee thing and working with him quickly turned into longer hours and eventually grew into what it is today.’’
Coffee has been around for centuries or as their website says ‘‘since an Ethiopian shepherd observed his herd of goats ‘dancing and frolicking in an unusual manner’ after eating the berries from shrubs which turned out to be Coffee Arabica’’.
And while The Coffee Company hasn’t been around quite that long, they are now well established in the coffee scene in New Zealand.
Iain started the business by importing coffee equipment and already roasted coffee beans and setting up a small shop within Polar Hospitality on Tahunanui Drive. Called Everything Coffee, they sold everything from dishwashers to glassware as well as coffee machines and of course the beans and accessories.
‘‘Iain was the top of the South Island distributor for ESE coffee machines as well as Caffe´ Molinari coffee and we are now the New Zealand importer for Caffe´ Molinari and send their products around the country from the Tahunanui warehouse.’’
Spori said as the business grew Iain needed more office space. ‘‘He talked with Yuri from Gelato Roma, who was looking for the same sort of thing, and together with another person formed Caffe´ Roma where we had retail shelving and office space and someone else ran the cafe.
‘‘After a couple of years we decided the coffee business needed a dedicated location because we wanted to grow the retail part of the business, almost as a showcase for our wholesale products.’’ The shop at 130 Hardy St was vacant at