There’d been a bit of toot­ing over on Twit­ter about Cus­toms Brew Bar, a new cafe from Cof­fee Supreme, so when it opened the Wel­ling­tonista paid a vis­it.

It’s not your run-of-the-mill cafe – as well as a lush woodern interi­or, Cus­toms also sells a range of single-ori­gin­al cof­fee beans and uses less than ordin­ary meth­ods of brew­ing the beans.

So I had a chat to Cof­fee Supreme’s Justin, who kindly explained the concept behind Cus­toms Brew Bar.

Their nine beans are all single ori­gin. Most cof­fee used in cafes is a blend of beans from dif­fer­ent places (noth­ing wrong with that – it means you get a con­sist­ent cup, every time).

Single ori­gin beans, how­ever, come from the same geo­graph­ic region. Cus­toms has beans from such exot­ic loc­ales as Sumatra, Ethiopia, Nicur­agua and Guatem­ala. And you’ll get vari­ation with single-ori­gin beans – the fla­vour will dif­fer from roast to roast, from sea­son to sea­son. But that’s part of the fun.

Also fun are the brew­ing meth­ods that Cus­toms uses. As well as a famil­i­ar espresso machine, they also use two non-espresso meth­ods – the old-school Chemex Cof­fee­maker and the new­fangled Clover machine.

The Chemex was inven­ted by chem­ist Peter Schlum­bo­hm in the 1930s, and is con­sidered a design clas­sic. It uses a spe­cial glass beak­er with a paper fil­ter designed to let the fla­vour drip through. Aw yeah.

The Clover machine is a more recent inven­tion. The cof­fee grounds are added into the top of the machine where they’re mixed with hot water and stirred, then that mix­ture is sucked down through a fil­ter.

It’s prob­ably bet­ter to actu­ally watch the Clover in action – it’s ridicu­lously enter­tain­ing watch­ing the (actu­ally quite simple) pro­cess.

The machine’s set­tings let the barista pre­cisely con­trol the amount of water, its tem­per­at­ure, and the time the cof­fee is brewed. It’s geeky and sci­entif­ic but makes a really good cup.

The Clover has a cult fol­low­ing in North Amer­ica, but curi­ously the com­pany was bought out by Star­bucks, so now Clover machines can­’t be pur­chased whole­sale any more. Cof­fee Supreme got in there early.

Justin said that by using the Chemex and the Clover, they would hope­fully show people that brewed cof­fee is not an inferi­or meth­od to espresso. Lots of people feel a little ashamed of mak­ing cof­fee in a plun­ger at home, but a good cof­fee plun­ger can make a really good cup because it’s so simple to get right.

But if you like a good old espresso, Cus­toms have an awe­some Slay­er espresso machine. Yeah, that’s right – it’s called a Slay­er. Com­ing straight outta Seattle, the Slay­er lets the barista adjust the pres­sure of the steam, per­haps start­ing out with a low pres­sure, then crank­ing it up high­er.

These three cof­fee-mak­ing meth­ods com­bined with the beans on offer mean that you can get to know a bit more about what you’re drink­ing rather than just requir­ing that it wake your brain up. It’s not unlike what we already do with wine – caring about the fla­vour and the region, not just its effect on the body.

Also worth a look is the lovely interi­or of the cafe. It’s been dec­or­ated in a Mod­ern­ist style (ooh), with lots of gor­geous recycled wood (from the Cof­fee Supreme own­er­’s old farm­house), and a style hark­en­ing back to the post-war era when sci­ence was our friend, cof­fee was a fancy new thing, and the future seemed so bright and full of prom­ise.

Cus­toms Brew Bar is an abso­lute cof­fee ner­d’s para­dise, but it can also be enjoyed by those of us who just want a good flat white, and maybe to learn a little bit more about what’s in that lovely cup. 

  • Cus­toms Brew Bar – 39 Ghuznee Street, Te Aro