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We grow and roast coffee

Pretty simple really

We grow our coffee in Knockrow, just above Byron Bay. The rich volcanic soils give us the opportunity to use sustainable practices, no chemical fertilsers or sprays, just the rain from the sky and a bit of TLC. The trees pretty much look after themselves when they are as big as ours.

 
We roast in a fluid bed roaster, designed by Ian Bersten of Bellaroma fame, he wrote the book on coffee. We roast on the farm every week, unless we go camping, then we usually shut up shop for a few days. Don't panic if the online shop is shut, we usually don't go away for more than a week.
Our farm is about 80 metres above sea level, we have 15 000 trees in the ground though the yield from these is varied because of our pruning and cultivation regime. There are two creeks on the property, the best for fishing is Emigrant creek.

With our abundant rainfall the creeks flow year round they say there are good size Bass in the creek,the kids and I haven't had much luck down there, manly eels and carp but it's a great spot to sit and listen.

 
 
Our coffee is derived from the CSIRO varietal K7 which, according to Jos is believed to have been selected by R.H. Walker from the 'French Mission' trees on his Legetet Estate at Muhoroni in Kenya.

Mechanical harvesting

We gave hand harvesting a go in 2009 but gave up. It is really gruelling work that requires a great deal of time an patience both of which are in short supply in the Rainbow Region. We had a good team of helpers for the last season. Hand sorting the pulped cherry is a job that requires a lot of concentration. After a big day amongst the trees it makes the job even harder.
 

Processing the cherry

There are two processing methods we employ: Wet Pulped and Dry Processed.
Wet pulping, as the name suggests uses a pulper at Jos' place to remove the soft ripe cherry from the bean, the beans are then demucilaged(removing the slimy stuff), the result is called parchment.
 
Dry processed cherry is laid out to dry in the sun then hulled at Corinnes place in a massive machine that strips the dried cherry and parchment off in one go.
 


 

Rainbow Region

The region we grow our beans in is part of a massive caldera that extends from Murrwillumbah to Lismore. This extinct volcano has it's solid 'plug' in Mt Warning.