Coffee is key at new Martinborough cafe

BEAN BUFFS: Dudley-Anne Hill, left, and second-in-charge Louisa Smiley get busy at the opening on In the Neighbourhood Coffee House and Roastery in Martinborough on Friday.PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

MARTINBOROUGH was buzzing on Friday as community members celebrated the long-awaited opening of coffee house and roastery, In the Neighbourhood.

Home to Neighbourhood Coffee, the coffee house will roast beans in small batches daily and offer freshly baked treats, gourmet salads and superfood smoothies.

In the Neighbourhood Coffee House and Roastery is the creation of Martinborough mother-of-three Dudley-Anne Hill.

She brings with her more than two decades of experience in the hospitality industry from time spent in England, Israel, Australia and New Zealand.

Mrs Hill said the cafe's food focus would be on the healthier side.

It will have a range of gluten-free and dairy-free options and sell organic retail products.

Mrs Hill and her husband moved to Martinborough eight years ago and were living abroad with their children for the past three years.

The Hill family spent the last two years in Ballarat, about 100km north-west of Melbourne, and did an eight-month stint in Tonga before that.

In Tonga Mrs Hill spent many days on a coffee plantation experiencing first-hand the process of harvesting coffee, from plantation to the cup.

"It was the everyday experiences that intrigued me," she said.

"From the re-planting of baby coffee plants after a storm, the first flush when the plantation was covered in tiny white flowers that smelt like jasmine, or savouring the taste of a coffee cherry bursting with flavour as sweet as summer watermelon.

"There is much to learn of the origin of the coffee in our cup."

She said the idea behind Neighbourhood Coffee was to roast daily in small batches on a small drum roaster, allowing consumers to become involved in the roasting process.

Coffee roasting classes would soon be introduced, where customers could roast a kilogram of coffee beans to take home.

"It has become far too easy in our consumer culture for us to forget that coffee is a crop that is grown by farmers," Mrs Hill said.

"It requires a list of tasks that happen well before those beans arrive to us to be roasted."

She said if handled properly at origin, coffee has the potential to be respected and treated like a fine wine. Mrs Hill managed the award-winning Underground Coffee Company, a boutique coffee roastery in Christchurch for six years.

She owned and operated the Bay House Cafe on the West Coast, winning a New Zealand National Tourism Award for Best Small Business.

The cafe also won Best Cafe/Restaurant for the West Coast region for five years running.

Since returning to Martinborough from overseas six months ago Mrs Hill has been working towards opening the business and said it was "nice to get the doors open".

Teaming with Mrs Hill is Martinborough woman Louisa Smiley, an experienced baker and barista "passionate about creating food that nurtures and supports a healthy wellbeing".

In the Neighbourhood Coffee House and Roastery is located on the square in the village of Martinborough and is open seven days from 7am until 5pm.