News

  • Sustainability at Three Llamas

    Here at Three Llamas, we pride ourselves on our ongoing efforts to increase our sustainability. We are a small business that understands the impact we have. We have taken significant measures to reduce our waste in both our retail and wholesale space. Just four years ago we undertook several measures including switching nearly all our wholesale customers from bagged coffee to re-usable buckets or containers. Coffee bags are currently not recyclable and over the last four years we estimate we have saved over 20,000 bags from landfill. Within the roastery and retail area itself, we limit the amount of waste...

    Read more →
  • Celebrating 600 roasts!

    Celebrating 600 roasts!

    The very first batch of coffee we sold was back in 2013 into the Peruvian market and we labelled it LOT 001. Nine years later, with our weekly coffee roasts, we have arrived at LOT 600! We think that is a milestone worth celebrating so all next week we are going to have daily in-store specials on espresso coffee drinks and on our bean selections!
    Read more →
  • MEET OUR ROASTER'S CHOICE... INCA GOLD

    MEET OUR ROASTER'S CHOICE... INCA GOLD

    We are very excited to introduce our newest addition to the Three Llamas Gourmet Coffee collection. Our Roaster and Three Llamas Founder Richard created Inca Gold to showcase the very best that Peru has to offer.  Inca Gold is a delicate, light roast boasting clean and crisp flavours and accentuating the sweet notes of summerfruit and honey. With minimal roasting to preserve the unique origin flavours formed in the Andes Mountains (Cajamarca, Peru), this speciality roast creates an invigorating cup that beautifully captures the unique flavours that Peruvian coffee has to offer. Served best black as a pour-over, filter or plunger coffee...

    Read more →
  • Common Mistakes When Storing Coffee...

    Common Mistakes When Storing Coffee...

    How and where you store you freshly purchased coffee beans has a huge impact on how long it will stay fresh for. Get it wrong, and you can make your beans go stale within a week! We want you to get the absolute most out of your coffee, so below are some classic mistakes to avoid when storing coffee to maximise freshness...   Mistake #1: Storing in a glass/see-through jar  The light and increased temperature inside the jar will lead to very rapid oxidation of the beans, leaving you with stale coffee beans in no time.   Mistake #2: Storing in...

    Read more →
  • What's Special About Specialty Coffee?

    What's Special About Specialty Coffee?

    Cupping scores are a reliable measure of the quality of coffee, an internationally recognised measure by the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America). The system, based on a 100-point scale allows coffee lovers to gain insight into the quality of the roast through classifications from very low "off-grade" coffees through to "super premium speciality coffee". The SCAA defines specialty coffee as "the highest quality green coffee beans roasted to their greatest flavour potential by true craftspeople and then properly brewed to well-established SCAA developed standards". To be classed a speciality coffee, the roast must score 80 points or above, a standard that only...

    Read more →
  • RHS Little Llama Cafe

    RHS Little Llama Cafe

    Three Llamas is very excited to be supporting Rangiora High School's student-led pop-up cafe initiative 'Little Llama'. The first semester level three hospitality course have been learning about theory behind the origins of coffee, as well as putting their practical skills to work on the espresso machine to learn to make industry quality coffee.  Image source: RHS The students have been putting their barista skills into action to operate a real-life small business during break times at school, in their small cafe area in the Rakahuri building. From term two, the students have been serving handmade espresso coffee, hot chocolate, and baked cafe treats. We...

    Read more →