Couple come home to roast
Love, coffee and family are the main ingredients that allowed a Woodville couple to brew up their own roastery.
Tunki Roastery roasts small batches of speciality-grade coffee beans, the highest quality grade under international industry standards, imported from Peru, and recently started selling them at the Untamed possum fur and leather shop in Woodville.
Nicole and Aron Sinarahua started Tunki hoping to build a business that could support their young family and allow them to spendmore time together.
‘‘We both love coffee...and this is something we could do together, without needing millions of dollars to start,’’ Nicole Sinarahua said.
The couple have been married for five years and have a two-year-olddaughter and an 11-month-old son.
Sinarahua works full-time as a teacher in Marton, while her husband looks after the kids during the day.
A daily commute acrossmost of the width of the North Island, from Tararua to Rangitı¯kei, means the family can’t see as much of each other during the week as they would like.
‘‘We’re trying to build a reputation [for Tunki], build up our online store and get our coffee on more shops’ shelves, sowe can support our family thatway,’’ Sinarahua said.
Another reason a roastery made sense was because her husband was from Peru, and grew up close to an area known for the quality of its coffee beans.
The couple met when Sinarahua spent a year in Peru teaching English after she graduated from university, and he was working at the same school.
They dated most of that year and weren’t ready to part ways when Sinarahua’s placement at the school was up.
‘‘[So] he came back here with me, to live [in New Zealand] for a year and see how thingswent. That was 10 years ago.’’
She said when they were deciding what their business should be, her sister-in-law offered to set them up with a co-op in Peru who now suppled the couple with beans from the Quillabamb region, near Machu Picchu, where the Andes meet the Amazon.
They bought a small bean roaster, set it up in their garage and started roasting 500-gram batches in April to sell online and at farmer’s markets.
While selling coffee beans out of a possum fur and leather shopmight seem odd, there was a family connection there too.
Untamed is the factory store of the Basically Bush tannery, owned by Sinarahua’s parents.
Her dad suggested putting Tunki coffee on their shelves to reachmore customers, and build a track record that would help convince other shops to stock their coffee too, she said.