Nelson Magazine - November 2021

Coffee culture Coffee puritans know just how they like it. But as methods of extraction have broadened in recent years, caffeine fixed Britt Coker ponders, should our minds broaden too?

TESS JAINE

Zippy at his Vanguard Street coffee and lunch bar.

There’s no disputing it - we lot love our coffee. Here, it’s never more than a short walk between café choices no matter which street you’re standing on, and even on a hot day in summer you’ll find coffee cart queues at our region’s fairs and festivals. We can boast about the roast too with many loyal followers of bean baggers like Pomeroys, Sublime, Kush and Zumo, Raglan Roast, Rabbit Island, Celcius and Crossbow. For a population of our size, that’s a lot of coffee sack cushions and lampshade covers. And when you show this kind of devotion to the bean, it’s inevitable that niches form as a way of standing out from the crowd.

Zippy’s Vanguard Street coffee and lunch bar is only four months old and is a small place, about the size of a compact office. Which is exactly what it was before it was a coffee bar. It has your run-of-the-mill street access (customers like that kind of thing), but inside, there’s a door through to the neighbouring bicycle shop that Zippy helped set up with his friend, Nigel. “Let’s turn the office into a plant-based lunch bar”, he said, so they did. Now, if you ever desire a bike and a vegan coffee at the same time, this place will feel like a convergence in an alternate universe.

Zippy has been a vegan for 18 months and has put his coffee milks where his mouth is. He stocks five different plantbased milks – oat, soy, almond, macadamia and coconut, and doesn’t charge more than what you’d pay for a normal coffee elsewhere, nor any price difference for a large or small serving. This is a business model that goes against the flow, but then, so does a coffee shop that doesn’t stock cow’s milk. But word is getting out amongst the plant-based milk fans and vegan cycling peloton - and even traditionalists are coming back for seconds.

Zippy recalls day two of business when a tradie walks in.

“He said he wanted a full cream mocha and I said we don’t do cow’s milk here. He looked a bit disgruntled, but I made him a mocha with oats milk, chocolate sprinkles and vegan marshmallows and he walked out the door with a bit of a grunt. I thought, well I’ll never see him again. A few days later he walked in and said, “gidday mate, give me the usual!”

Now he’s a regular, visiting twice a week for his chocolatesprinkled usual.

Besides being a vegan or liking Earth, is there any good reason to drink a plant-based beverage? Ex-barbecue chef, Zippy reckons animal fats greatly affect the flavour of many food dishes and the same holds true of coffee.

“When you’re blending any product together [with animal fat] you’re manipulating the flavour of the hero ingredient. What we’re trying to do here is to hero the coffee but create an amazing flavour experience that’s balanced and consistent.”

Zippy measures every shot he extracts to keep the consistency. He says a lot of baristas do it, aware that tweaks need to be made in the process as the day warms up. This watchful eye on the extraction helps ensure the customer’s coffee tastes the same on this day as it did the last.

There used to be a quirky Hardy Street café/restaurant called Zippys once, but this isn’t it. Nor is it connected. But there’s an offbeat nature they share and though tracking down frothed macadamia milk is not akin to discovering the source of the Nile, if that’s your kind of exploring you’ll find Zippy’s a rewarding expedition end.

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