Coffee farmer Tibor Pinci’s hate for waste led him to create a rare coffee cherry tea produced nowhere else in New South Wales.
His boutique farm on the outskirts of Coffs Harbour has more than 3,000 arabica coffee trees which produce more than three tonnes of coffee cherries, often also called coffee berries, that are normally thrown away.
But Mr Pinci was determined to avoid the fruit being wasted when he started the coffee farm about 15 years ago.
“I’m European and I hate wasting things,” Mr Pinci said.
“When I had my first few buckets full of cherries … I said ‘oh, these cherries taste beautiful. What can I do with them?
“They [the cherries] taste beautiful when they are fresh. I started drying them, I made a tea out of them and kept experimenting to even make a brew with the extract…”