Wellington coffee institution Coffee Supreme’s latest café, Customs Brew Bar on Ghuznee Street, is combining delicious single-origin beans, science and simplicity to make the ultimate brew.

Customs offers nine different single-origin beans, with four brewing methods – including the delightful Clover machine (one of the only Clovers in New Zealand) and a Chemex – a style of brewing you can even do at home.

The Clover is pretty cool indeed, allowing the barista to choose their ‘dose’, water temperature and brewing time to make the ultimate coffee based on the type of bean. When the machines were released circa 2006, they were quickly bought out by Starbucks, meaning there are found few and far between today (they sometimes pop up on eBay, where they’ve retained their $NZ15,000 price tag).

Simplicity is key here, says Supreme roaster Justin McArthur, who is behind the new café. People would come into Supreme to get beans but be embarrassed to say they were brewing their coffee in a plunger. Customs goes to show you don’t have to be a fancy-pants with an espresso machine to make good coffee.

I’ve visited the café twice, and, feeling a bit overwhelmed with the choice of beans and brewing method, I’ve gotten the friendly staff, Ralph and Charlie, to decide for me. On my first visit I tried a Chemex – I’d heard about these on the Twitternets, where the café has been hyped both by locals and Supreme’s competition. On my latest visit, I tried the Swiss Gold Filter which is a fun wee contraption that sits in your cup – I don’t actually know how to explain it any better than that. It’s all served on a cute wee tray – just another part of the Customs experience.

If you do fancy an espresso, they can make you one using their Slayer machine – another coffee geek machine which gives the barista control over their brewing pressure. These are also very new and still really rare, with only 20 in coffee shops around the world in January.

When the Ghuznee Street space came up, Coffee Supreme jumped at the chance to secure it, Justin says. He wanted to create an environment with a Sunday-morning-in-the-lounge-listening-to-records-and-drinking-coffee vibe. The café’s interior is built largely from recycled wood from Coffee Supreme’s owner’s old house.

Customs has been hyped as a place worth taking an hour off work to trek across town to visit, and it really is. And it’ll make you think twice about how your coffee was made before you drink your double chocolate cherry frappawrappahoppaccino.

Follow Customs Brew Bar on Twitter at www.twitter.com/customsbrewbar