Zentvelds' family coffee plantation in the hills behind Byron Bay

NORTHERN NSW COFFEE - UNIQUE BEANS

What's special about our locally grown coffee?

  • The cooler sub tropical climate and richly fertile volcanic soils produces cupping characteristics that have determined the local ‘Northern Rivers’ beans to be rated as a true high quality ‘single origin’ coffee.
  • A high altitude is generally considered necessary for the production of premium quality arabica beans. In our district, what we lack in altitude, we make up for in latitude. Our rich volcannic soils and cool microclimate provide similar conditions to the better known ‘high grown’ coffee regions around the world.

The cooler climate of our notably low-latitude region has resulted in 3 major benefits:

  • The cherries (fruit) ripen slowly, over a longer period than most coffee producing nations. This produces a high quality ‘dense’ bean with a distinctively sweet, full flavour.
  • The trees naturally produce less caffeine than most, as they are not affected by disease (e.g coffee rust) or the pests so prevalent in the tropical zone coffee lands. (Coffee trees produce caffeine as a defence mechanism.... no pests or diseases, less caffeine is produced. It is also a sign of quality, with higher quality arabica coffees containing less caffeine.)
  • The local coffee is able to be grown as naturally as possible – no harmful sprays such as pesticides or herbicides are used on the trees, at all.

    This is remarkable as coffee is one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the world.

    Because of the invasive, quickly growing grasses in our region, most growers only need to spray the edges of their rows of young trees in the first 2-3 years. After that time, the trees have a deep enough canopy to shade out potential weed or grass invasion, and mowing between the rows is sufficient to keep the grass from being a pest.
  • No further sprays are likely to be used on the plantation.
  • Zentveld’s are encouraging growers to become certified organic where possible, and look forward to sourcing suffficient organic beans to develop a certified organic range in the future.
  • All Australian grown coffee is free of genetic modification.