Christchurch cafe owner Sam Crofskey was looking for a point of difference from his competition when he saw a TV story about subsistence farmers planting organic coffee in Samoa.
The item, on TVNZ's Tangata Pasifika programme, was about a group called Women in Business Development that's changing the lives of rural families in Samoa.
Thanks to their efforts, 1000 families are now earning income from fledgling export industries - and one of their future exports will be coffee beans destined for Christchurch's C1 Espresso, owned by Sam Crofskey and Fleur Bathurst.
Sam, Fleur and their staff are offering more than moral support - they travel several times a year to work with a coffee-growing family on the island of Savaii.
On a recent trip they were accompanied by a Country Calendar crew, and this episode is the result.
Although coffee's been grown in Samoa since the first Europeans arrived, it's mostly the Robusta variety, which doesn't make a great long black.
So Sam and Fleur are helping Petelo Sa'umani and his family clear bush and plant the more flavoursome Arabica variety.
It's a long term commitment, so Sam and Fleur and their staff plan to travel to Savaii several times a year to help out in the plantation.
The first harvest is expected in three years - and after that organically grown Samoan coffee will be available in C1 Espresso in Christchurch.
Led by the charismatic Adimaimalaga (Adi) Tafunai, Women in Business Development was set up 10 years ago to help Samoan woman break into the male-dominated business world.
But after Samoa was devastated by two cyclones and a blight that killed the taro crop, the group's focus changed.
Adi says Samoan families desperately need help - first to cope with the immediate effects of disasters, including last year's tsunami, and then with ways to earn cash and put savings aside.
The group is funded by NZAid, Oxfam New Zealand and the Tindall Foundation.
One of their biggest successes has been supplying organic coconut oil to the multinational Body Shop chain.
- http://tvnz.co.nz/country-calendar/episode-11-coffee-connection-3473443, 23/11/2010.