When Kirsten Popplewell sold her farm in the Hakataramea Valley, she joked that if she couldn’t find a job, she would make coffee.

And she has been running her coffee trailer Echo at Weston since the start of January.

“I'm qualified, sort of, at lots of things, but I think just the whole market is quite depressed and I basically couldn't get a job. So I decided that I needed to find one, as much as I enjoyed gardening, riding my horses and fluffing around at home. I wanted some structure to my day.” 

Kirsten had been farming her whole life, and drought brought with it “a bit of a crunch time” for her.

“I watched the meat prices go down, merino wool was going down, bank and other costs were going up, and I just decided to make an economic decision to sell and put my money elsewhere,” she says.

She gets up at five in the morning, and is at the coffee cart, parked up next to the Weston Four Square just after 6.30am to be open by 7am.

She closes when it gets quieter about mid-afternoon.

While she works alone, Kirsten enjoys the interactions she has with customers, which is something she had been lacking having also farmed alone - although she did enjoy it.

“But you become socially lazy, and I just wanted some social contact, so I decided that I would buy a coffee cart.” 

Kirsten noticed the previous coffee trailer next to the Four Square had been gone for a while, so spoke to store owner Kyle Went about setting herself up there.

He said yes, so she bought herself a coffee trailer, gave it a bit of TLC, and did some barista training.

“And then sweated over the whole entire Christmas break, about coming out and doing it for real,” she says. 

“I just practiced and practiced making coffee. Everyone that came to visit ended up over-caffeinated and probably couldn't get away fast enough!” 

Echo Coffee is open Monday to Friday, and as well as the regular coffees, Kirsten also offers real fruit ice cream (in the warmer months), and affogatos (espresso coffee poured over ice cream).

She also offers a more palatable option to the usual takeaway cup, with edible Twiice cups, which come in chocolate, vanilla and gingerbread flavours.

It is like having your coffee in your biscuit, she says, and the cups last for at least eight hours with coffee in them, so there is no issue with them disintegrating before your drink gets cold.

“So they are quite sturdy, and a $3 charge, which just covers the cost,” Kirsten says.

“But I just like the whole idea of not adding to the landfill, which is why I stock them . . . I just like their philosophy.”

Kirsten now lives at Fuschia Creek, and although she still has dogs, horses and sheep, she does miss living in the Hakataramea, and her farm.

“I think all my life I've been a little bit - I love the dog and horse work, I love the stock work - but I've always been annoyed at how much sheep and beef farmers have to take farmgate prices, and the product’s treated as a commodity, no matter how much effort we put in to produce a beautiful product” 

Kirsten is enjoying her new gig. She has met amazing people and says her customers are “really cool”.

“I’ve got people that really support the business on a daily basis, which is super.”

On a nice day, she’ll put out a table and chairs, and if a customer sits down to drink their coffee she might join them, if she’s not too busy.

“And then I get up and make someone else a coffee and then they'll sit down.

“You can end up with three or four people that have never met sitting there having an amazing conversation and I love that. That whole vibe.”

It is also handy being parked up next to the Four Square, because she never runs out of milk.

Kirsten won’t be taking her coffee cart to events. She loves just working a Monday to Friday, and the anticipation of a free weekend is a luxury she didn’t always have as a farmer.

“I just wanna treat myself to those days off.”