Fish River Roasters

Twenty years in, and the first lesson Pete lands on isn't a strategy or a system. It's the people. 🤝

You can start a business on your own. You can't grow one on your own. What you end up with is the sum of the abilities and attitudes of the team you put around you.

Part 1 of Pete's business lessons from 20 years of Fish River Roasters. More to come. 🔜

Chocolate. Hazelnut. Apricot. Pear. 🍫🍐🍓

If you've seen notes like these on a bag of coffee and wondered where anyone's getting that from. Fair question. Every coffee on that shelf is going to taste like coffee, that's the foundation. But flavour notes are what sits on top of it.

Pete's got the flavour wheel out in this one to show how we get there. You start broad: is there a fruity note in this cup? Then you narrow it down, berries, dried fruit, other fruit, citrus, until you've got language specific enough to actually be useful to you. That's the process behind every descriptor we print.

Here's the part worth knowing though. Everyone tastes slightly differently. There's no correct answer and no test you can fail. There's just the coffee that suits the way you taste.

That's why we run the range we do, and it's why we put the five-pack tasting box together. Five blends, one box, so you can work out which one is actually yours. 📦

Save this for the next time a bag tells you it tastes like blackcurrant.

Sour or bitter? Your shot time is probably telling you why ⏱️

They look like two different problems. They're opposite ends of the same one.

Pull your shot too quickly (under 20 seconds), and you're getting the acidity and the brightness, but you've stopped before the sweetness, and the caramels have come through to balance it out. That's your sour shot.

Run it too long (35 seconds and beyond), and you start pulling the more bitter compounds out of the coffee. That's your burnt one.

The sweet spot sits somewhere around 25 to 30 seconds, timed from the moment you press the button to the moment you stop it.

Coffee is all about balance. ⚖️

Save this for next time. 📌

🚨 This is the kind of coffee you only get your hands on once a year - and once it's gone, it's gone.

Grapefruit, blackcurrant, brown sugar.
That's not a wish list - those are the flavours you'll experience ☕

Kiruru AA is a fully washed Kenyan, grown at 1,800 metres in the deep red volcanic soil of Murang'a County.

Graded in water, because the beans that sink are the sweetest.

Bright, juicy and properly alive.

Beautiful as filter. A lively espresso if you like your shots to have something to say.

Roasted in Bathurst, shipped daily.

⌛ Available only in August. Free shipping on orders over $65.

👉 Shop the Microlot on our website (link in bio)

Supporting local partners on the South Coast! ☕️🌊

Pete popped into the brand new Otis Kiama location on the main street of sunny Kiama!

From fresh, beautiful salads and wraps to top-tier Fish River Roasters coffee, the crew at Otis are doing an incredible job building a vibrant spot for locals and visitors alike.

If you’re heading down the South Coast, make sure to drop in, grab a coffee, and say g'day to the team!

📍 Otis - Kiama, NSW

⚠️ NEW FROZEN COFFEE PROGRAM NOW LIVE!

We've just launched our new "Frozen Reserve" program.

Taking some of our rarest microlots, roasting them fresh, vacuum sealing them, and freezing them.

Freezing preserves the freshness and flavour from the day it was roasted - so when you open the bag weeks or months later, it tastes exactly as it should.

Our first frozen release is on the website now. Small limited runs from our microlot program - once they're gone, they're gone.

If you love rare coffee, this one's for you.

🔗 Link in bio.

Coffee, just a little cooler ☕

On the road with Pete! ☕️🚗

Stopped by the Taralga General Store to grab a coffee from Gabby and shout out one of our absolute favorite countryside stops!

Tucked between the South Coast and the Central West (just north of Goulburn), this place has it all: cracking food, the local post office, all the essentials, and of course, top-tier Fish River Roasters coffee. 👌

Next time you’re taking the back roads, make sure to pop in!

📍 Taralga General Store, NSW

Running a café outside the city shouldn't mean being an afterthought to your roaster.
Too many operators wait on late deliveries and support that never calls back.

Fish River Roasters supplies cafés right across regional NSW - reliable delivery, machine servicing, barista training and real human support, any day of the week.

Ask Meg at Ironbark Espresso Bar in Blayney: "Anything goes wrong, it gets resolved - fast." 🤝

Thinking about switching roasters?

👉 Let's have a chat