Bobo is eating a sandwich when I arrive, soaking wet from an autumn downpour, at his fragrant shed of a roasting house. Raglan Roast is not a pretentious place. There is an elaborate Sharpie mural on the plywood wall. Wooden op-shop chairs reupholstered with burlap coffee sacks cradle the rears of stout-sipping grizzled surfers, and a section of the roasting machine appears to be patched with duck tape.
This machine is marvellous. It looks like something out of a 19th century chemistry lab, it smokes like my wig-wearing, motorcycle-driving Bavarian grandmother, and it produces some of the best beans this country of coffee-roasters-galore can cup together.
Bobo fires it up with a cigarette lighter. The rumble his roaster makes as its barrel turns and its fan blows is of an industrial nature, at odds with the arty surroundings. All the doors are closed against the rain, and the little room quickly fills with coffee smoke - a smell which resembles burning wet hay. Most coffee roasters in New Zealand use either conduction heating (spinning hot metal plates which stir the coffee, toasting it by touch) or convection (fans blowing hot air into the beans like a popcorn popper). Bobo's does both, resulting in an even roast which is neither burnt nor dull.
"It's a lot like wine making," Bobo says, explaining how he is constantly developing flavours and aromas - trying to achieve the perfect blend of origins. Raglan Roast's beans, mostly fair-trade, come from a list of locales which ring bells of perfection in a coffee-fiend's mind: Sumatra, Ethiopia, Columbia, Uganda...It's no guess why their brews are so ballsy on the tongue.
"I want people to be able to drink one cup and know that they've had a cup of coffee."
In an old grey sweatshirt and slightly baggy jeans, Bobo is of that breezy breed for which Raglan is famous. Thirty-something, he speaks with the ease and flow of someone who spends his days making coffee and making people feel comfortable - both of which he's very good at. He started the company five years ago after spending most of his twenties in bed with an autoimmune disorder. Allowed out for a single hour each day, he would make his way down to a friend's roasting house and help out - earning free coffees when he pitched in.
As his health slowly improved, Bobo saved up his sickness benefit and splashed out on a roaster with his friend Tony. They bought it on Trademe for a scanty $1,875, and Raglan Roast was born.
Bobo prides himself on the fact that his two hole-in-the wall coffee houses (you can't call them cafes because there isn't any food), one in Raglan and one in the sneeze-and-you-miss-it hamlet of Te Uku, have become social magnets for their respective communities. Other cafes in Raglan cater to tourists, but Raglan Roast's (or simply "Bobo's," as the locals call it) location down a back alley, smashed in the wall beside a surf shop, makes it easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking for.
The company offers three roasts: Brown Lightning, a punch-in-the-face caffeine junky's dream, named for the effect the original blend had on people's metabolic processes;. Mocha Java, a nod to the traditional Yemenis brew, with less caffeine and a more mellow flavour; and Daganic, which is 100% organic and fair trade.
In a few months, Raglan Roast will be invading the capital. "We've bought a building in Wellington, which gives us a chance to experiment and try things out." But Bobo assures that it will be of a similar vein to his roasting house in Raglan - no food, just coffee, pure and anything but simple.
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