2AWA: Best Coffee Beans

Here are the nom­in­ees for the Best Loc­al Cof­fee Beans cat­egory for the 2nd Annu­al Wel­ling­tonista Awards (2AWA)

Hook it straight into my vein:

The Women’s Peti­tion Against Cof­fee, in 1674, declared:

Only a Pimp to the Tav­ern, a rel­ish­ing soop pre­par­at­ive to a fresh debauch: For when people have swill’d themelves with a morn­ing draught of more Ale than brew­ers horse can carry, hith­er they come for a penny­worth of Settle-brain … and after an hours imper­tin­ent Chat, begin to con­sider a bottle of Claret would do excel­lent well before Din­ner; whereupon to the Bush they all march togeth­er, till every one of them is Drunk as a Drum, and then back again to the Cof­fee-House to drink them­selves sober.

We, on the oth­er hand, don’t say any­thing at all until we’ve had our daily fix. It’s Wel­ling­ton, it’s cof­fee that pumps through our hearts and our minds thick­er than blood.

(nom­in­ees after the jump)

A. Ripe

How can you not love Ripe, their cof­fee is a lovely mel­low blend that makes you feel all dreamy. They’ve only been around since 2002, but it’s quite stun­ning how many places stock them. If you drink cof­fee in the Hutt and Petone, you drink Ripe. Their cutie Zoom Cof­fee to-go spots are mak­ing a dent in the Fuel empire and hardened cof­fee fans are even known to travel into the misty realms of Moera to vis­it their roast­ing empire.

B. Havana

Havana is pretty much the epi­tome of Cuba St, and that’s a very cent­ral part of the life of the Wel­ling­tonista. Try to ima­gine Wel­ling­ton icons Mid­night Espresso, Deluxe, the Maranui Surf Cafe and Havana Bar – not to men­tion Fidel’s and Ern­esto without Havana beans and it’s likely you’ll give your­self a ser­i­ous brain injury.

WINNER!!!
C. Mojo

Mojo seems set to become the new Star­bucks, but one that’s actu­ally really really tasty, and one that’s really really sexy. We appre­ci­ate that their stores vary in design to suit their envir­on­ments, and that their baris­tas are so expertly trained we’ve nev­er had a bad cof­fee any­where that car­ries the Mojo label.

D. Peoples coffee

Des­pite their apo­strophe cata­strophe, we really dig on the fact that Peoples sup­plies fairtrade cof­fee. It’s the brand of choice for envir­on­ment­ally-friendly Kapai, and it’s a way to make your­self feel like a good human being. It’s smug­ness in a cup!

E. Supreme

We love the Supreme cards with tips on the back (Hic­cup rem­ed­ies, remem­ber­ing names and so forth) The art­work on the cards is really cool. Some of the Wel­ling­tonis­tas have their morn­ing cup at the Fact­ory on Hop­per St nearly every day. And Supreme offer a Fair Trade blend as well.

For a handy map of the roas­t­er­ies of these nom­in­ees, use the “best­cof­fee­beans” tag on Zoom­in. Get your­self caf­fein­ated before vot­ing opens on Novem­ber 19.