Caribé Café, also known as Caribbean Coffee Roasters Ltd, sits on Cleveland Street in the Wellington suburb of Brooklyn, and it is first and foremost a working roastery. Coffee is roasted on site every day so that whatever leaves the counter — a take-away espresso or a pack of beans — is as fresh as it can possibly be. The green beans behind it all are imported fresh from the Caribbean, Central and Latin America, giving the small Brooklyn café a roster of origins that most corners of Wellington never see.
The roasting approach is deliberately hands-on. Each origin is roasted in small batches in a Has Garanti Turkish drum roaster, with every origin given its own specific roast profile to draw out its maximum flavour and cup characteristics. Only after roasting are the coffees blended, and that blending is done by hand daily. The result is a line-up of blends and single origins that taste the way the roaster intended, not the way a factory schedule allows.
The flagship is Caribe Gold, the roastery's Gold Medal Winning Blend, which you can take home in packs of both ground and whole bean coffee. Alongside it you'll find the other blends and single origins on offer, plus the same freshly roasted coffee served as take-away espresso. Caribé also runs a busy wholesale arm, supplying whole bean and ground coffee to businesses throughout Wellington — from cafés to accountants, hairdressers and Government departments — with free delivery in the CBD area twice a week. If you're after great coffee in Brooklyn, or coffee for your workplace, this is where the roasting happens.
Tucked onto Cleveland Street in Brooklyn, Caribé Café is that rare thing: a café where the coffee you're drinking was quite possibly roasted that same morning. Operating as Caribbean Coffee Roasters Ltd, the team roasts daily on site so they can offer the finest in take-away espresso and fresh whole beans. It's a set-up that puts freshness at the centre of everything — the espresso in your cup and the bag of beans you carry home both come off the same roaster.
The beans themselves make a long journey before they ever reach Brooklyn. All of the whole bean coffee is imported fresh from the Caribbean, Central and Latin America, a range of growing regions that gives the roastery plenty to work with. From there, nothing is rushed. Each origin is roasted in small batches in a Has Garanti Turkish drum coffee roaster, and every origin is roasted in a specific way — its own profile, tuned to that bean.
Only after roasting does blending happen, and even that is done by hand, daily. Roasting each origin separately and blending afterwards is what lets the roastery ensure maximum flavour and cup characteristic in every blend and single origin on offer. It's a slower, more deliberate method than blending green beans up front, and it shows in the cup.
The roastery's flagship is Caribe Gold, its Gold Medal Winning Blend. It's available in packs of both ground and whole bean coffee, so whether you brew espresso at home, plunger, or simply want beans for your own machine, there's a format that fits. Alongside Caribe Gold, the café offers the other blends and single origins in its line-up, each roasted and blended with the same daily, by-hand care.
For many visitors, the simplest pleasure is the take-away espresso: freshly roasted coffee, pulled and handed over the counter, ready for the walk back up the hill. It's a straightforward offering, but when the beans were roasted that morning, straightforward is all it needs to be.
Caribé's coffee doesn't stay in the neighbourhood. Caribbean Coffee Roasters Ltd supplies whole bean and ground coffee to many businesses throughout Wellington, and its customer list is pleasingly varied — cafés, naturally, but also accountants, hairdressers and Government departments. For workplaces, the roastery offers free delivery in the CBD area twice a week, competitive prices and custom-tailored solutions. If you're curious whether their coffee suits your business, they'll deliver a sample for your approval. And in a refreshingly honest touch, if they're not able to help with your coffee requirements, they say they'll most definitely point you in the right direction.
Being green matters to this roastery too — Caribé devotes an entire section of its site to being friendly to the environment. Combined with the small-batch, daily roasting model and the New Zealand roasted badges the company carries, it paints a picture of a small local business that thinks carefully about how it does things.
You'll find the café and roastery at 54 Cleveland Street, Brooklyn, Wellington. If you'd rather order ahead or ask about beans, phone (04) 974 9170 or email [email protected] — the website's orders page is there for exactly that. Whether you're a Brooklyn local after a daily espresso, a home brewer hunting freshly roasted Caribe Gold, or a Wellington business looking for a roaster who'll actually tailor a supply to your needs, Caribé Café is a small operation doing things the careful way: one origin, one batch, one day at a time.