When it comes to the art of ‘Being’ we often think about small, mindful moments of joy and presence, and it’s hard to beat the first moment of being in your day – your morning coffee!
So we asked our friend Saxon Wright, Founder of Pablo & Rusty’s, to talk to us about all things coffee.
Behind extraordinary ideas, there are extraordinary people.
What is the greatest thing about a morning coffee?
It’s part of a daily rhythm, a routine that brings order as well as enjoyment. For people like myself, its the very first thing I do when I get up. I enjoy the process of grinding the beans to get the aroma, however I do mix it up from espresso to aeropress, or sometimes a pour over. However, it’s always first thing and its good to be able to start the day without having to put any thought down. Then it gives me time to wake up slowly and start the day well, enjoying those delicious flavours. I think everyone has their own rhythm, but a little boost to get you going is a nice bonus.
For many of us, coffee is something we go to bed looking forward to waking up to. How can that speciality brew go beyond the delicious taste and aroma, to realise your vision to positively impact people and the planet through coffee?
Like everything we buy, there are unintended consequences that happen because of our choices. We want to help people choose a coffee that is doing the least harm in the journey before it arrives to them. However, at Pablo & Rusty’s our goal is bigger than just doing the least damage, but the most good. We want to use the momentum of people’s daily rituals to do something to leverage our scale and our own buying to ensure that every sip counts so we leave the world better than the way we found it.
Our mission is to roast and brew the most delicious coffee whilst creating a positive impact on people and the planet. We are proud to be one of the few specialty coffee roasters in the world who are a BCorp Organisation, Carbon Neutral Certified and 1% for the Planet members. This way, you can enjoy every cup knowing that your coffee is doing good.
We want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to enjoy delicious coffee at home, regardless of where you are on your coffee journey. That’s why we offer a range of coffee formats from freshly roasted bean blends and single origins, specialty pods (biodegredable and compostable), convenient coffee concentrate and Nitro Coffee cans.
You source your beans worldwide. Can you tell us some more about where you buy the beans and what your standards are for the farms and families that you buy from?
We get our beans from so many countries, including Colombia, Guatemala, Panama and Ethiopia to name a few. We buy small lots of very high-quality beans and also exceptional coffees that support our blends on a larger scale. Either way, we want to know the farmer we are buying from and how they manage the operation. We have really specific requirements on how the beans are grown and managed all the way to our warehouse. We also want to know about how workers are treated and ensure there are no negative effects on the environment from their operations. Working with the same farms over the long term certainly makes that easier and helps both to improve quality and assist them in running a more sustainable farm.
Pablo and Rusty’s are BCorp certified, can you tell us about your journey to certification?
It’s certainly a tougher process than I expected. We were already doing a lot, but the certification really forced us to go into detail and cover a range of new areas we hadn’t looked at. We had to document everything and build out our systems to ensure that we lived up to our ideals. It is such a tough standard that means you really have to have everything lined up. We have just done our 3 year renewal and every time we want to improve our score.
You started small, as many businesses do, and how you’ve grown! What’s your ambition for Pablo and Rusty’s?
As we grow we can do more, so we are keen to keep growing and investing into the impact areas we are passionate about. We love expanding into new areas and also focus on new products. Different brewed coffees, concentrates, single serve pour overs etc are all new areas getting attention. Our vision is to make great, sustainable coffee accessible to everyone in Australia, so that means getting coffee in a form that is as easy as possible with the lowest footprint. We’re not there yet, but we definitely keep pushing ourselves forward.
P&R want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to enjoy delicious coffee at home, regardless of where you are on your coffee journey. You can enjoy mindful moments every day with a Pablo & Rusty’s coffee subscription!