KEY POINTS:
'Shuck me, suck me, eat me raw...' The request, printed on a T-shirt pinned on the wall, catches my eye as I step into the shop at Clevedon Coast Oysters farm.
Magical little things, oysters - at their best, salty like the sea, softly plump and alive even as they disappear down your throat. I peer closely at one. It's beautiful, set against its rough shell, with thread-like, blue-hued veins pooling into its crimped edges.
Shop manager Ally Ford certainly knows a thing or two about oysters: she sells a mind-boggling 60,000 dozen a year over the counter. She excuses herself as a customer walks in. It turns out he's a regular who doesn't speak English, but moments later, a box of two dozen oysters changes hands and he's gone. At the back of the shop, a window invites a behind-the-scenes glimpse into another room, where apron-clad packers hose down shells and fill boxes. It's all very industrious.
Kawakawa Bay is perfect for growing oysters, I'm told. There's a good current, and its shallow waters provide the oysters with ample sunlight, vital for their development.
The farm became organic in 2005, 'though, really, we always have been', owner Callum McCallum tells me. 'Now we're just a bit more stringent.'
Behind the building, barges chug up the muddy inlet from the sea. The salty air is still and birds sing into a pale sky across the water. This is where the oysters are grown, on criss-crossed wooden racks, part-submerged in the water.
'Growing them on racks spreads them out and means every oyster gets a feed,' says McCallum.
Harvesting oysters entails banging them off the racks, then it's all hands on deck as clumps of shells are separated, cleaned and graded.
Size matters if you're an oyster, apparently, and the shell is an accurate indicator of the plumpness of the meat within. Most of the 'jumbos' - a whopping 15cm long - make their way to Japan.
Oysters are at their plumpest and juiciest during the winter months as the cold water encourages them to feed.
Those harvested between January and April are sold as summer harvest oysters.
'They still taste good, they're just skinnier,' says McCallum.
The business is labour-intensive as it's mostly all done by hand, even the shucking - albeit with a pneumatic knife which splits open the shells with a firm shudder. Most oysters are sold ready-shucked.
"People don't want to open their own oysters and, frankly, I put them on ice to freeze their shells, and, as they defrost, they open naturally, doing away with any fiddly shucking.'
Shucked oysters will keep for up to a week in the fridge, though Ford recommends cooking them after three days. 'Some customers eat the lot before they even get back to the car,' she says, laughing.
I ask if it's true that oysters are an aphrodisiac: the answer is an emphatic 'Yes, definitely!'
Barely five minutes back on the road, I can bear it no longer.
'Stop the car, I need an oyster,' I demand. We pull over, I rip open the ice-packed box and knock one back. Then another... McCallum's right - they're pretty darn good.
OYSTER SHOP
Clevedon Coast Oysters shop, Pakihi Marine Farms, 914 Clevedon Kawakawa Bay Rd, Papakura.
Phone (09) 292 8017 or www.clevedonoysters.com
Open Monday to Friday 7am-4.30pm, Saturday 9am-2pm, Sunday 10am
- Detours, HoS
