Mahalia Coffee — Life's Less Ordinary
It started with a café, a small coastal town, and a woman who didn't even drink coffee.
In 1996, Paul and I opened the Wild Mulberry in Robe, South Australia. I was in the kitchen, cooking — but somewhere between the morning rushes and watching customers wrap their hands around a warm cup, I fell in love with coffee. Not just the drink, but the craft behind it.
By 2003, that love had become Mahalia Coffee. We sold the café, started a family, and built a small roastery in Robe that quickly grew beyond anything we'd imagined. In 2006, Jamie Anderson joined us, bringing expertise in technology and marketing that helped us grow without losing what made us — us.
Twenty years of profile roasting later, that obsession still shows in the cup. Along the way we picked up more than 60 medals at Australia's top coffee and food shows — a CSR Golden Bean Event Champion title against 1,000 entrants, a Trophy Champion Espresso at the Royal Adelaide Show, and medals across nearly every blend and origin we've entered. We've since stepped back from the competition circuit, but the roast profiles that won those medals are exactly what we still craft today. These days, the truest measure of our coffee isn't a trophy — it's the customers who order the same blend, year after year.
We source from the finest farms globally, prioritising Rainforest Alliance, organic and shade-grown practices, because great coffee should be good for the people and places that grow it too. And we're proud to be stocked in more than 40 independent grocers and delis across South Australia and Victoria — real local stores that chose us on merit, not just a name on a shelf.
Twenty years on, we're still roasting in Robe. Still obsessing over flavour. Still shipping fresh coffee to Australians who believe their daily cup is worth caring about.