Northland Coffee Farm Opens Tasting Experience at Ikarus

Rob Schluter and Marie-Elodie Proust are preparing to welcome visitors to Ikarus Coffee — a Northland farm on the Pekarau Hills where arabica is grown, processed and roasted on site.

RNZ's Country Life reports the couple want to offer a slower tasting experience this summer, helping people understand where their coffee comes from and how flavour changes with processing. Schluter has spent more than a decade building knowledge in what he calls a marginal coffee-growing climate for New Zealand.

Coffee specialists recently travelled from Auckland for a traditional cupping session on the farm — slurping brews from spoons to assess flavour — while heavy rain hammered the verandah roof. Ikarus is known among NZ specialty buyers; the farm is described as one of the farthest commercial plantings from the world's main coffee belt.

Schluter planted Arabica var. Laurina in 2014 after sourcing seed from New Caledonia. The couple now have about 1200 trees and harvested roughly two tonnes of fruit last season. Other growers are experimenting from Northland through to the Bay of Plenty, but this story centres on the Northland operation — not Te Puke.

The nascent NZ coffee sector remains small — an estimated 9000 trees nationwide — but Schluter says interest is growing as more producers trial their own sites.

Originally reported by RNZ Country Headlines.