Brewtown pops up

It’s never easy coming home after the holidays, but if there’s one thing that made it easier this year, it was the coffee (or, more accurately, the lack of good coffee elsewhere).
Now, I don’t consider myself a coffee snob by any stretch of the imagination, but after three weeks out of Wellington, I was ready to pitch my tent in the middle of Peoples Coffee, curl up on a sack of coffee beans, and never leave again.

And to make my homecoming even sweeter, I found that the little elves at Peoples had been busy brewing up a few surprises over the holidays…starting with Brewtown!

Brewtown is a Peoples Coffee Pop-Up store, temporarily bringing fresh, single-origin filter coffee to the streets of Newtown.  If you haven’t yet jumped on the non-pressurised coffee bandwagon, now’s your chance, people!   You’ve already heard me raving about the purity and goodness of the mighty V60, and you can try one here, along with chemex and cold drip, at Wellington’s first brew bar to specialise exclusively in filter coffee.

Which might seem a little crazy, given that filter coffee hasn’t always had the best reputation in New Zealand.  If you’re anything like me, the words ‘filter coffee’ evoke images of American diners with checked tablecloths, ill-tempered waitresses, and the sort of lukewarm bitter coffee found lurking in office staffrooms of the nineties.

But trust me, one visit to Brewtown will change all that.  For a start, Danny the barista could not be further from a ill-tempered woman.  He’s nice, he wants to answer all your burning questions about non-pressurised coffee, and he’s got cold-drip coffee brewing in the front window that he’ll let you taste for free!  And once you’ve figured out your favourite, you can buy your own brewing tools and learn how to replicate it at home.

What’s more, the United Nations have named 2012 “Year of the Co-operative”, so Brewtown couldn’t be more timely.  All Peoples Coffee comes from small producers who are part of fair trade cooperatives.  While espresso coffee uses a blend of coffee beans, filter coffee showcases beans from a single origin, so you can taste the unique flavours of beans grown in different regions of the coffee world.
“Their coffee is a way of telling their story” says director Matt Lamason.  “Single origins are a way to promote our co-operatives, and connect consumers with our coffee farmers.”

Keep a lookout on the Peoples facebook page, because Rene (the Peoples Coffee roaster) will be doing weekly cuppings of different fair trade organic coffees, and you’re all invited.

“A Pop-Up store lets us trial something we wouldn’t normally do with a shop” says Matt.   “We want to see if Newtown is ready for filter coffee.”

So what do you say?  Are you ready to for it?  Get yourself down to Brewtown for a taste, and then tell me, tell me, tell me!  Leave us your feedback below.  I want to know how you rate filter coffee, and how you think it compares to espresso.  (But you’d better get your skates on, because pop-up stores tend to pop down again, when you least expect it…).

Brewtown is open Tue – Sat, 9am – 5pm.  You’ll find it at 12 Constable St, Newtown (right next to the espresso store).