A SHORT HISTORY OF HAWTHORNE COFFEE. In days long ago, when birds had arms and men wore knickerbockers, there was a wonderful village called Havelock North. Behind the town was a great hill known as Te Mata Peak, where, according to Maori legend, a giant named Te Mata met a sad end whilst attempting to bite his way through a mountain range. His motionless body formed the great hill, which was less of a hill and more of a lifeless giant covered in greenery. Rumour had it, though, that Te Mata was actually just sleeping, as one might do after such an enormous meal. The townspeople of the old Havelock North certainly believed that this was the case. They also thought it best to wake the friendly giant, as he was missing out on all sorts of activities in which he would prove relatively useful, such as inter-village tug of war, reaching things in high places, and heavy lifting. After numerous town meetings and consent applications, it was decided that the gentle giant should be gently woken with everybody’s favourite wake-up method: coffee. And so a great roasting machine was built. Each morning, the townspeople awoke to the aroma of roasting coffee beans, which drifted along the streets at the crack of dawn, knocking on doors and sliding through open windows like a fragrant alarm clock. Intended to reach the nose of the Sleeping Giant, this creeping coffee cloud was also held wholly accountable for the sudden cheeriness of Havelock North’s residents and dramatic increase in crop yields. Such marvellous effects became cause for tremendous celebration. The moment the curls of aroma touched their nose, the villagers would jump out of bed, grab an empty vessel, pull on a dressing gown, and race down to the town square to revel in the joy of the brown gold. It was like Glastonbury, but every morning and without the Rolling Stones. Nobody minded this absence, because in their place were the Roasting Beans, singing coffee-themed hits like ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Drink it Black’. Slowly, this celebration turned to ritual, and with each passing year the original purpose of the roast slipped a little further from memory. The village continued to flourish under an entirely pleasant haze of coffee, and word of the phenomenon spread far into distant empires, who began their own roasts and enjoyed similar rewards. In the late nineties, it was deemed necessary to move the great roasting machine indoors. This was a fruitless attempt at protecting the brown gold from greedy birds, who suffered severe withdrawal symptoms before learning how to get through windows. The new establishment was named Hawthorne Coffee, and nothing else really changed. Today, the villagers still wake to the sweet smell of roasting beans, at which point they still head straight for the town center, although now they gather around quite stylish furniture and have vessels provided. There’s also a distinct lack of knickerbockers, and rather than a jostling crowd, there’s an orderly queue which may be to blame for much of the traffic congestion in and around the town and neighbouring regions. Havelock North remains famous for friendliness, and still produces some of the most abundant crops in all the land. Sometimes, a little shudder ripples through the town, which most believe is an earthquake: but we know it’s a snore of something more.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 20:20:25 +0000
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