Closer to Home – Our Next Chapter in Coffee

At Social Coffee Co, we're always looking at how we can make our coffee better—not just how it tastes in the cup, but where it comes from and the journey it takes to get to us.

Over the past year, one area we've been putting a lot of time into is our green coffee selection.

Being based in Cairns puts us in a pretty unique position. Some incredible coffee is being grown almost on our doorstep on the Atherton Tablelands, while just to our north, Papua New Guinea produces coffees that we've been using and loving for years.

So we've started asking ourselves a simple question:

Can we create more of our coffee using beans grown closer to home?

Building Relationships on the Tablelands

We've now partnered with two coffee farms on the Atherton Tablelands to begin using more locally grown green coffee across our range.

For us, there are a few reasons why this is exciting.

Firstly, the coffee is travelling a remarkably short distance compared with beans imported from the other side of the world. Instead of green coffee travelling thousands of kilometres before reaching our roastery, coffee grown on the Tablelands can make its way down the range to us here in Cairns.

But just as importantly, we're able to build relationships with the people actually growing it.

Being able to know where our coffee comes from, talk directly with local producers and understand what's happening at farm level gives us a much stronger connection to the finished product.

And when we're roasting that coffee here in Cairns, there's something pretty special about knowing how close to home the entire journey has been.

Looking North to Papua New Guinea

Our definition of "closer to home" doesn't stop at the Australian coastline.

Papua New Guinea is one of our closest coffee-growing neighbours and produces some fantastic coffees.

We're currently working with coffees from multiple farms and growing regions across PNG, selecting beans that give us the characteristics we're looking for in our blends.

One of the things we particularly enjoy about PNG coffee is the natural fruitiness it can bring to a cup. Used correctly in a blend, it can add sweetness, fruit character and complexity while still producing the balanced, approachable coffee we want people to enjoy every day.

It also allows us to source another major component of our coffee from our own part of the world.

The Idea Behind Frontier

Our Frontier Blend was an important step in this direction.

By bringing together coffee grown on the Atherton Tablelands with coffee from PNG, we were able to create something that represented our part of the world while still delivering what matters most to us—a great tasting coffee.

Frontier has shown us that sourcing closer to home doesn't need to mean compromising on quality.

In fact, it has encouraged us to go further.

Something New Is Coming

Right now, we're behind the scenes working on a couple of new blends that will sit alongside Frontier.

We're experimenting with different combinations of our Tablelands and PNG coffees, roasting them individually, adjusting percentages and spending plenty of time around the cupping table and espresso machine.

We're not going to release them until we're completely happy with what's in the cup.

But the goal is to create coffees that have their own identity while sharing the same philosophy:

Exceptional coffee, roasted in Cairns, using more beans grown closer to home.

We expect to release these new blends later this year, and we're pretty excited about where they're heading.

Fewer Miles. Stronger Relationships. Great Coffee.

We're not pretending that we'll suddenly stop sourcing coffee internationally. Some of the world's great coffee-growing regions produce flavours and characteristics that simply can't be replicated elsewhere, and they'll continue to have an important place at Social Coffee Co.

But where we can source exceptional coffee closer to home, we think that's worth pursuing.

It means supporting growers in our region.

It means developing stronger relationships with the people producing our coffee.

It means reducing the distance some of our green beans travel before reaching our roastery.

And ultimately, it gives us an opportunity to create coffees that genuinely represent where we're from.

From farms on the Atherton Tablelands and our neighbours in Papua New Guinea, to our roastery here in Cairns, and finally into your cup.

That's a coffee journey we're pretty proud of.

— Dion Miller
Social Coffee Co