Kiwi Flavours: Alun Evans, founder of Antipodean Coffee

Craving a classic meat pie in Shanghai, or the perfect flat white in the Philippines? In this new series, the Asia Media Centre speaks to Kiwis who are running successful food and beverage businesses in Asia.

Alun Evans was at a party in Wellington when someone asked him, “if you could do anything, what would you do?”

The year was 1997. Evans was 29 years old, and had just been promoted to general manager of a company which supplied linen to restaurants and hotels. It was a good job with a decent salary. But that one simple question was just the prod he needed to pursue his true passion.

“I had been taught to roast by an old Italian guy in Wellington, and I’d studied economic geography at university, looking specifically at coffee farming in Indonesia. It suddenly occurred to me that I’d quite like to be doing something with coffee.”