Why "Kea Coffee Roasters"?
That's a great question, with a long and ramble-y answer.
No, seriously though. You might wanna put the kettle on for this one ;)
I haven't always been into coffee. In fact, I didn't drink it at all until my mid 20s.
But after resisting for so long, it was New Zealand's epic cafe culture that eventually won me over.
Living there, we'd often see Kea birds on hikes in the alpine around the South Island.
They were inquisitive, curious and a little bit cheeky.
Fastforward to a couple of years later, I was sitting in my parents kitchen on a visit home. I made a French Press of a Kenyan coffee that blew my mind.
It was (what I now know to be) the classic Kenyan flavour profile - insanely juicy, all blackberries and acidity... I had no idea coffee could taste like that.
Looking back now, it was fairly average, grocery store bought, pre ground and reasonably mass produced coffee. But it sent me down a rabbit hole that I've been obsessed with ever since.
In the years that followed, I got more and more obsessed. Always chasing that next "wow" cup.
I love the insane range of possibilities that are there to be explored with coffee.
The endless variables to be tweaked, origins, processing and varietals to be explored.
Eventually, I'd tinkered and tweaked and slurped so much that the next thing I could think of to explore was roasting the beans myself.
Roasting opened up a WHOLE new world of possibilities. New variables to play with. New recipes to tweak. New chemical reactions to master.
"This coffee's great, but what if I extend the maillard phase by 15 seconds more?!"
Or...
"This coffee has great acidity, but I know it has more sweetness to give up. What if I drag development time to 1 minute".
Eventually, when my obsession started to get in the way of my day job, I knew I had to start a company, to share the exciting coffees I love with everyone.
Naming the company was easy.
I just had to go back to where it all began.
Kea Coffee Roasters.
We like to think we're a lot like the Kea. Driven by curiosity. Usually found in the mountains.
See you out there.
- Matt
