coffee works time line part one
the early days…
1988 the local Australian coffee growing industry is in its infancy. we begin as boutique roasters at Rusty’s markets, cairns. we’re called ARABICAS NQ, AKA: “the coffee man” to people at the markets !
1990 by now we are marketeers, providors to several restaurants in Cairns, we have one souvenir product, Queensland Blue. we’re receiving mail order requests from people who discovered us on their holiday in cairns. they spill the beans about us to family and friends and mail order begins to grow. we’re so excited and proud to be offering this exciting service. ideas are percolating to think of a HOT name to call it…and, one morning, in the shower …‘roast & post’ springs to mind!
92-94 we give our name and our label a makeover, grow our range of local gift coffees from 1 to 9 and ARABICAS COFFEE AUSTRALIA [ that’s us, from our kitchen table!] starts to send show & tell parcels to the big guns, Australia wide!
94 we crack a few serious accounts: Duty Free Shoppers, Myer, David Jones. it’s all done by us, from home, with 3 little kids. we’re still working full time at other jobs, doing the markets on weekends, living on love + plenty of caffeine!
95 we take a leap of faith and give up our day jobs to concentrate on coffee. the kids fit in there somewhere, between the broken sleep and coffee sacks!
96 we outgrow our shed at home, and become 1 of 4 tennants on our current COFFEE WORKS site. its just a bare block, not a tree or blade of grass in sight. we paint walls, plant trees, run irrigation, make do with whatever we have and set about developing a big range of blends, supplying gift hamper companies, creating private label coffees for some big names and are joined by our first 2 full time team members. phew! thank you, guys!
97 we’re starting to outgrow our corner of the rented space. our landlord kindly builds us an extension, for extra storage, but, by the time its done, we have another plan… and COFFEE WORKS is born!
next issue… we fling open our front door to the world!
the people you meet on the road…
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