We slept really well last night – didn’t even wake up until 7. That is a rarity for us after flying, etc., so we are happy and well rested! Our plans for today were to do the Taranaki Loop, which is a drive around the area, basically circling Mt. Taranaki. But first, we’ve found this awesome little Macadamia Plantation on the beginning of the loop where we’ve made tour reservations.
The eMacadamia Experience. I’d read about it in one of the magazines in our room (talk about well stocked! The owners of the motel, Karen and her husband, think of everything, brochures all over the room, offers of chairs and blankets to take to the Festival of Lights – more on that later – you feel totally taken care of here!) So, anyhow, read about the Macadamia plantation, and emailed to see if we could do a tour. Christine emailed back confirming 9:30 am today – she and her husband Bill own and run the Plantation, just the 2 of them! Wow – really? This just sounds so intriguing.
We follow Christine’s directions, miss one of the turns, back track (now with the GPS on – yeah, well, why we didn’t do that in the first place…who knows!) and end up driving up this lovely back country little road with quaint cottages, farms and rolling hills all around us. The gate at the plantation is open – as promised – and we pull in and park on the gravel lot. Christine is there to great us – a wholly welcoming, friendly solid woman who immediately works her way into our hearts with her heartwarming greeting and casual, friendly style.
Christine immediately launches into their story – which just fascinates me – she and Bill moved back to the family farm in the 70’s. The large tract was a functioning dairy farm owned by Bill’s family, and eventually was split into two tracts – one for Bill, one for his brother. Bill and Christine were, as she says “keen” to start growing macadamias on their part of the property. They did the research and began planning and planting their orchard. But in the early years, the trees flowered, but didn’t produce much fruit. So they decided they needed something else to support themselves and their family of 4 young children. They began planting Kiwi (an obvious choice)! But the fates were not in their favor, and their entire harvest was wiped out in 1988 with cyclone Bola. They actually lost 4 years because the kiwi plants wouldn’t bear fruit for that long.
Thus, they re-focused on macadamias – researched the trees, visited South Africa, Hawaii, Australia to determine the best varieties and growing processes, knew they wanted trees that produced nuts that would fall when ripe, not have to be picked or “shaken” to the ground, bought the wood from mature trees and wood grafted them to all their little saplings, and over the years have turned the property into a viable macadamia plantation. I am just amazed. to have that kernel of an idea and then to see it come to fruition so incredibly well. The pictures below are the orchard and the nuts hanging on the tree (we didn’t see the nuts because we were too late in the season: thanks to the emacadamia.co.nz website for the photos).
And the history of how they started and developed is just part of it. Bill and Christine not only grow the macadamias, they also dry them (of course) and roast them, and create different products with them. They created a slicer that can slice the nuts in many different thicknesses and they cater to chefs who want to incorporate the nut slices into various dishes. While they don’t grow other nuts, they will procure them and slice them as well. They also roast, bake, make pastes and flours and all sorts of different finished nut products (including macadamia soap!) with their farm produce. As their business grew, they began focusing on custom production. Nothing they do is in “bulk”, produced and sitting on a shelf. Everything is basically requested. They sell their products directly to chefs (she pronounces it “shifts” and it took me the entire hour long tour to figure out she was saying “chefs”!) who request specific nuts, mixtures, slice styles or pastes – and Christine and Bill manufacture it to specifications and ship it out within a day. And it’s just the 2 of them!!!
And that’s the end product! During the tour, Christine takes us through the whole process. She shows us the machine (a finger gripper thing) that Bill takes through the orchards to pick up the nuts. Then we get to see the de-husking machine and she runs a few sample nuts through so we can see how it works to take the green husk off the nut. Next is the dyer – because the nuts are wet from the shells and need to be dry before they can be taken out of the shell. There are 2 drying processes – a big sort of blow dryer and then a they invented (they need patents on all this stuff!) a huge dryer in a shipping container that basically pulls all the humidity out of the air and dries the nuts so they are ready to be cracked.
Next the nuts are sent to the cracking machine, where they hulls are cracked and the nuts come out. Below is a picture of Christine watching the nuts after they are cracked – again, courtesy of emacadamia.co.nz.
Next is a water bath to get all the residual shell off (this is Christine’s bailiwick – only she does this!) and the nuts are separated – the good ones float to the top – the 2nd quality sink and are dealt with later. After the separation they go to the inspection station, where Christine and Bill listen to music (AC/DC to Country to Classical) and pick out the good nuts from the OK to the bad nuts.
Fascinating!!! And the way they have developed the business to focus on completely customized end products – terribly smart! We end up our tour sitting out back in the drying area and tasting a whole slew of different pastes (all delectable), slightly salted nut mix, macadamias (of course) and their “mueslix” sliced nut mix – which is really great. Plus we are given a little handout with all the nutritious properties of nuts and some suggested recipes and ideas for using nuts in our food when we get home and samples of her macadamia soap. Brilliant! A thoroughly enchanting couple of hours made all the better because Christine is so personable and interesting and passionate.
In addition to macadamia knowledge, she also recommends different things to do around New Plymouth and is a real advocate for the town and the activities around the area. We can’t say enough about the whole experience! We say farewell (after buying more soap) and head back into town to explore New Plymouth in the afternoon.
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