Right now at Zentveld’s the coffee blossoms are out, looking and smelling as sweet as jasmine and attracting bees. The ripe red fruit is hanging on, ready to be picked, but as it has been so dry, until last weekend, the harvest has been delayed.
Beautiful coffee is grown in the hills behind Byron Bay. Sweet, chocolatey, fine quality arabica, grown in what are distinctly ‘cool for coffee’ subtropical conditions and terroir. This truly ‘Byron-grown’ coffee is so rare it is rarely served in town. There aren’t many growers, and if you haven’t visited a productive coffee farm before – well now you can.
From now until the end of December, Zentveld’s will have their coffee cart open at their plantation and roastery in the hills of Newrybar; Monday to Friday 8.30am–4pm.
The money from every cup sold will go directly to the Country Women’s Association of Tenterfield who have been quietly providing food, funds and thoughtful support for the firefighters as well as for the wider community effected by the long lasting drought and recurring bushfires.
But it’s not just good coffee and good karma at the plantation. When you open the roastery door you enter a real aroma factory: there are roasted beans, leaf teas, herbal infusions and even chocolate. They have some seriously good chocolate espressobeans, and they make pure, gluten free, dairy free drinking chocolate.
Zentveld’s are real pioneers of the local coffee industry who first planted five varieties of arabica coffee in 1987, but business took off when 23-year old Rebecca set up the roastery on the plantation 26 years ago.
‘I live with, and live for, local coffee’, says Rebecca. ‘We grow it, roast it, serve it and supply it to whomever truly appreciates the natural sweet flavour. It’s natural, spray free, and the lowest possible coffee miles when you buy it from the roastery door’
More info from zentvelds.com.au
193 Broken Head Rd, Newrybar.
Mon–Fri 8.30am–4pm.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
