Switch Coffee Roastery is a small-batch coffee roaster working out of 43 Austin Street in Onekawa, Napier. The team's speciality is supplying coffee people with excellent, ethically traded organic beans — coffee with a heart for the environment and the social conditions of the growers behind it. Their ethos is simple: you should be able to drink a great coffee without a crisis of conscience.
Rather than a single house style, Switch's master roaster has designed a blend for every kind of coffee habit. Industrial is the bold, full-bodied blend they run through their own machine morning, noon and night; Valvet is a well-balanced medium dark roast marrying South Pacific and South American origins; Breakout completes the core range; and the Decaf blend delivers full body and subtle sweetness with a clean, smooth finish. A rotating line-up of single origins invites regulars to broaden their horizons.
Every coffee is sold in 250g, 500g and 1kg, whole bean or ground for stovetop, plunger, Chemex/pour-over or espresso, with a subscription option that delivers on your schedule. Switch beans are also poured at cafes and eateries across Hawke's Bay, Waipukurau and Gisborne, and the website doubles as a brewing school, with guides for Chemex, cold drip, syphon, plunger and pour-over setups.
You can visit the roastery in Onekawa or order online, with delivery across New Zealand.
In Onekawa, the industrial stretch of Napier where Hawke's Bay makes and mends things, Switch Coffee Roastery goes about the warmest kind of manufacturing: turning ethically traded organic beans into the blends that start local mornings. From its base at 43 Austin Street, the roastery supplies home brewers nationwide through its online shop and keeps a growing family of cafes stocked across the lower North Island.
Switch states its speciality plainly: supplying coffee people with excellent, ethically traded organic beans. The team believes coffee should have a heart for the environment and for the social conditions of the growers who produced it, and the ethos follows from there — people should be able to drink a great coffee without a crisis of conscience.
That philosophy shapes the range. Rather than asking every drinker to like one house style, Switch's master coffee roaster has designed a blend for everyone, recognising that coffee habits are different from kitchen to kitchen.
Industrial is the blend Switch itself runs through its machine morning, noon and night — bold, full and rich without sacrificing the subtle nuances of each origin. The roastery likes it as an espresso and stovetop coffee, though it makes a fantastic plunger too.
Valvet — the name is a wink, not a typo — is the medium dark roast of the range, with South Pacific and South American origins married in well-balanced multiplicity. It's recommended as both a plunger and an espresso coffee.
Breakout completes the core blends listed in the online shop, and the Decaf blend is the quiet achiever: solid full body, light acidity, subtle sweetness and a clean, smooth finish. You won't feel you're missing out one bit, the roastery promises. For drinkers who like to wander, single origins rotate through the range as an ever-changing selection — an invitation to broaden your coffee experience one bag at a time.
Everything is sold by weight — 250g, 500g and 1kg — and comes whole bean or ground to order for stovetop, plunger, Chemex/pour-over or espresso, so the coffee suits your setup rather than the other way round. If you'd rather not think about reordering, a subscription automates delivery on your schedule — every 7, 14, 21 or 28 days — with a 10% saving and no obligation: modify or cancel anytime. Grinders are available through the shop as well, for anyone keen to take the whole ritual in-house.
Few roasters put this much effort into the brewing side. The Switch site carries step-by-step brewing style guides for Chemex, cold drip, syphon, plunger and pour-over (AeroPress included), alongside an explainer on how coffee is processed and a page dedicated to the Switch Family — the people and partners around the coffee. If your new bag arrives and your technique is rusty, the answers are already written down.
Plenty of hospitality folk have already chosen a favourite. Cafes and eateries across Hawke's Bay proudly serve Switch — among them Bayon Eatery, Birdcage Cafe, Boost Espresso, Coffee on Pakowhai, Kolachi Cafe, Lappuccino Cafe, The Filter Room, The Pie Man and Whole in the Wall. Head south and The Baker Boy pours it in Waipukurau; east, Stone Studio and Zest Cafe do the honours in Gisborne. Ordering your daily coffee at any of them is an easy way to audition the blends before committing to a bag of your own.
The online shop ships throughout New Zealand, with free CourierPost Express once an order passes $50 and a flat $3 rate under that. Checkout takes the usual suspects — Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Shop Pay and Union Pay. Whether you call in at the Onekawa roastery or order from the couch, the deal is the same: good beans, honestly traded, roasted by people who'd rather you enjoyed your coffee than agonised over it.