KEY POINTS:
When Paul Tucker moved to a valley tucked into the hills behind Kaeo nine years ago, the only thing missing from his backblocks paradise was decent coffee.
But not any more. At first the Friends of the Earth director fed his love of the perfect cup by roasting beans in a popcorn maker.
Friends came to visit, tasted his coffee and wanted more - and so began a cottage industry.
Paul and his partner Anne Carson, then deputy director of the Aids Foundation and based part-time in Auckland, graduated to a roaster handling 5kg of beans at a time and started supplying Kerikeri's farmers' market.
But still they couldn't keep up with demand.
Three years ago they stumbled on a vintage, 12kg roaster and are now supplying shops, cafes and supermarkets from Whangarei north.
And last week they bagged silver and bronze medals in the New Zealand Coffee Awards, alongside some of the biggest and hippest roasters in the country.
"We still get comments like, 'coffee roasting in Kaeo? It doesn't make sense'," Mr Tucker said.
They put their success down to passion, their own blends, hand-roasting in an old-time gas roaster and making sure their product is always fresh.
Ms Carson said they're thrilled to have won, and their medals are testament to the growing coffee culture in the North.
So why the name Tiger Mountain?
Mr Tucker says he went hiking in Java during a Friends of the Earth meeting in the 1990s.
"We were climbing a mountain, heading up through a coffee plantation, when we heard tigers and had to clear off pretty quickly ... hence the name."
- Northern Advocate
