Three beans hot new roastery

By Carolyn Enting

Three beans hot new roastery
We explore the latest food and drink offerings at the new City Works Depot in Auckland, including it's much anticipated coffee haunt.

The makeover of Auckland’s City Works Depot is nearly complete and already home to some of the city’s newest hot spots Brothers Brewery, chef Al Brown’s new eatery Bagel and Three Beans Coffee Roastery.

The industrial space has been converted in a cool and creative hub of independent businesses including Three Beans.

Here you can sit watch the coffee beans being drum roasted in front of you, smell the aroma and knock back a few Three Beans ‘Gangster Rabbit’ espressos. 

Coffee is served by friendly staff on glass serving trays which frame a state of origin fact sheet of what you are drinking – the country and region of where the beans are from, as well as growing conditions, processing method and characteristics. It’s coffee-geek heaven.

Three Beans director Jonny McKessar is passionate about his beans. He worked as a barista for 10 years, then as a barista trainer before establishing his own company. His roastery/café at the City Works Depot is the only Three Beans establishment though he does supply a few select leading cafes with his coffee blends, Gangster Rabbit and Raging Rhino.

Raging Rhino is fair trade and organic blend of beans from Guatemala, Columbia and Ethiopia. McKessar describes it as having “chocolaty and fruity undertones”. The beans for Gangster Rabbit come from Brazil, Kenya and Costa Rica to provide “the perfect espresso blend”. Each batch is hand picked by McKessar and the coffee roasted in small batches.

Knowing the origin of the beans from the source is important to him too. In 2009 he travelled to Central America, including Guatemala, to visit coffee farmers and processing plants so that he could better understand the industry. Last year he took another trip to Brazil, Peru, Columbia and Bolivia. In Peru he visited a farm in Quellomayo that is currently in the midst of a replanting project after a landslide nearly wiped out the farm in 2010.

www.threebeans.co.nz 

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