Founded in Auckland by Michael Allpress, this specialty roaster has been roasting coffee for over three decades. It now operates roasteries internationally while keeping its New Zealand roots.
Best for Hot-air-roasted espresso from an Auckland original, now roasting across five cities worldwide
Allpress Espresso was founded in Auckland by Michael Allpress and has roasted coffee there for more than three decades, but the company has since built out roasteries well beyond New Zealand — full cafes and roasting operations now run in Sydney and Melbourne, London, and Tokyo, alongside the original Auckland site. The company's stated point of difference is its hot air roasting method, a technique it uses across its full range rather than reserving for a single specialty line: the flagship Allpress Espresso blend, an A.R.T. Espresso, a Good Brew filter blend, a House Decaf, an organic B.M. Organic line, and rotating single origins. Scale is part of the story too — Allpress supplies more than 2,500 independent cafes internationally, a wholesale footprint that keeps the roasteries running as working production sites rather than showroom operations. Despite the international spread, the company still frames itself around its Auckland roots rather than any of the newer cities it operates in, keeping New Zealand as the reference point for a brand that now roasts coffee on four continents.
Atlas Power Coffee has roasted in Auckland since starting at its Ponsonby café in 1995, now from Albany on the North Shore. It roasts on a Probat L25 drum roaster and blends its coffees after roasting, not before.
Best for Probat-roasted Auckland coffee blended after roasting
Atlas Power Coffee started small: "We started roasting coffee in the front of our Ponsonby Cafe in 1995," as the company describes its own origin, before growing into today's operation out of Albany on Auckland's North Shore. The roasting itself runs on a Probat L25 drum roaster, a named, specific piece of equipment rather than a generic "professional roaster" claim. What sets the process apart is when blending happens: most blended coffees are mixed as green beans before roasting, but Atlas Power roasts each origin separately and blends afterward — a method the company says "honours the individual characteristics of the origin of the coffee" instead of averaging them out under one roast profile. That combination of measured process (tracking temperature, pressure and airflow) and post-roast judgment is how the company frames its consistency claim, positioning the roaster's own hands-on decisions as part of the product rather than something automated away. Three decades after starting in a single Ponsonby café, the throughline from that 1995 start to the current Albany roastery is the same equipment-plus-method combination: a named Probat drum roaster and post-roast blending, not just "independently roasted" as an unverifiable label.
Kokako has roasted organic, Fairtrade-certified coffee in Auckland since 2001, funding conservation for its endangered namesake bird. Its beans are sold at Commercial Bay and its Mount Eden roastery in compostable packaging.
Best for Fairtrade-certified organic coffee roasted since 2001
Kokako has roasted in Auckland since 2001 — "Kōkako first took flight in 2001," as the company puts it — and has held Fairtrade certification since 2009, on top of a house standard of 100% organic coffee and drinking chocolate. The name isn't incidental: kōkako is an endangered New Zealand forest bird, and the company backs that branding with actual conservation funding, supporting the Rotoehu Ecological Trust and the Kōkako Ecosanctuary rather than just borrowing the name for its logo. That sustainability line runs into the packaging too — bags are home-compostable, made from sustainably produced wood pulp and GM-free corn sources instead of standard foil-lined plastic. Two Auckland locations carry the brand into daily retail: a café at Commercial Bay in the CBD and the roastery's own roller door outlet at Mount Eden, where the beans are actually roasted. For customers uncertain what to buy, the site runs a "Coffee Matchmaker" quiz to match a roast profile to taste rather than leaving the decision to a wall of unlabeled bags. Two decades of Fairtrade-plus-organic sourcing, a real conservation tie to its own namesake bird, and compostable packaging make Kokako a more specific sustainability story than the certification stickers alone would suggest.
L'affare has roasted specialty coffee at its Te Aro flagship since 1990, one of the pioneers of Wellington's café culture. The 145-seat roastery-cafe sells beans, grinders, and espresso machines, including a limited-edition Chocca blend of Peruvian and Indian coffee.
Best for 145-seat roastery-cafe sells beans, grinders, and espresso machines
Since 1990, L'affare has roasted specialty coffee from a flagship at 27 College Street in Wellington's Te Aro neighborhood, growing into one of the pioneers of New Zealand's café culture. The 145-seat cafe and roastery doubles as an eatery and events venue, but the core of the business remains the beans: single origins and blends roasted on-site and sold through the shop and an online store, alongside grinders and espresso machines for home and commercial use.
Among the rotating lineup, the limited-edition Chocca espresso blend stands out — a pairing of Peruvian and Indian coffees built around notes of dark chocolate, burnt caramel, and mixed spice, released periodically rather than kept in permanent rotation. L'affare also supplies cafes and offices across New Zealand with wholesale beans and equipment servicing, and runs barista training for staff and home enthusiasts alike. More than three decades after opening, the operation still centers on the original Te Aro building, where the roastery, cafe, and retail counter share one address rather than being split across separate sites.
Zealong began in 1996 when Vincent Chen and his father, convinced the Waikato region's climate could support real tea cultivation, imported 1,500 tea cuttings from leading tea-growing regions across Asia.
Best for Organic tea grown entirely on New Zealand soil
Zealong began in 1996 when Vincent Chen and his father, convinced the Waikato region's climate could support real tea cultivation, imported 1,500 tea cuttings from leading tea-growing regions across Asia. New Zealand's strict quarantine process let only 130 of those cuttings survive — the small surviving stock that became the founding stand of what is now the country's only commercial tea estate.
Three decades on, the Gordonton property near Hamilton grows and processes 100% organic tea entirely on New Zealand soil, an unusual claim for a country with no prior tea-growing tradition, comparable in kind to England's Tregothnan. Visitors walk a tea trail through sculptures and displays tracing tea history before a guided tasting teaches the same appearance-aroma-taste appreciation method used across the industry, followed by a Signature High Tea at the estate's own Tea House overlooking the plantation. The tea has since been served to figures including King Charles III, a marker of how far the estate's reputation has traveled from its quarantine-survivor beginnings.
For a country better known internationally for wine and dairy, Zealong is the rare case of a founder betting an entire agricultural category could be grown somewhere it had never been grown before — and being right.
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