October 01, 2026
Long before Padre became one of Melbourne’s most familiar specialty coffee names, it was a little Brunswick East operation and local hotspot. Nearly two decades later, that original Lygon Street home is still very much part of their operation, but it’s simultaneously grown into a nationally recognised brand.
These days Padre is serving up coffee in Melbourne, Sydney and Noosa, with wholesale partners scattered all across the country. Brunswick East remains its engine room with the original café on one side of the street and a vine-covered HQ housing roasting, dispatch, warehousing and the team on the other. Perhaps most impressive is that somewhere along the way from neighbourhood roaster to national brand, Padre managed to make serious specialty coffee feel decidedly unserious. Their coffee is incredibly approachable yet the perfect selection for curious coffee drinkers who are interested in trying new flavour profiles from time to time.
That all being said, 2026 feels like a fitting moment for a little reinvention. This August, Padre rolled out a refreshed identity and coffee bag designs. It’s less a dramatic makeover than a sharper expression of the business it has grown into. Eighteen years after firing up that first roaster, the packaging might look different, but the interesting bit is what hasn’t changed. Loyal locals are still walking into the original Brunswick East shop to enjoy their morning coffee. That kind of regular doesn’t come from good branding alone!
@padrecoffee
www.padrecoffee.com.au
THE INTERVIEW
We caught up with the Padre gang to discuss their new look and feel, what they’ve been up to recently and their love for decaf coffee.
Tell us about Padre Coffee!
Padre Coffee was born in Brunswick East, Melbourne, back in 2008. What started as a neighbourhood roastery has grown into a community of coffee people, cafés and wholesale partners across Australia. Coffee has always been at the centre of what we do. We source and roast specialty coffee, work closely with producers and partners, train and support café teams, and serve plenty of cups ourselves across our cafés in Melbourne, Sydney and Noosa. A lot has changed since 2008, but our approach hasn’t really: do things properly, do them with care, and make great coffee, something people can genuinely enjoy every day.
How did Padre get started? Talk us through the process and challenges.
When we first started Padre, it was built around a pretty simple idea: source great coffee, roast it with care and create a place where people could come together around it. From those neighbourhood beginnings, Padre gradually grew beyond the roastery into cafés, wholesale, training and online. The challenge as we’ve grown has been holding onto what made Padre special in the first place: the personal relationships, curiosity, craft and sense of community.
That idea later grew into Good Coffee Doing Good, our impact program launched in 2020. It connects our coffee community with projects creating positive social, cultural and environmental impact, both at origin and here in Australia. Through marked coffees and products, a portion of sales supports our current project partners. That’s still something we think about today. We want to keep evolving and introducing Padre to more people without losing the character and care that got us here.
How do you source your coffee beans and what do you look for in the beans you use?
Quality comes first, but sourcing great coffee is about much more than a score on a cupping table. Our coffee team looks for coffees with quality, character and a clear sense of place, while building relationships and sourcing in a way that supports sustainable prices for producers. Some relationships span multiple seasons, allowing us to return to producers and regions whose coffees we know and love, while still leaving room to discover something new. Everything we buy is specialty-grade coffee, but ultimately we’re looking for coffees we’re excited to roast, brew and share.
How would you describe your coffee to someone who’s never tasted it before?
Approachable specialty coffee with plenty of character. Our range is broad, so there isn’t one single ‘Padre taste’. You’ll find everything from comforting, chocolatey everyday espresso through to bright, fruit-driven and expressive single origins. What connects them is our approach: quality coffee, roasted with care, without making it feel intimidating or overly serious. Great coffee should be something you look forward to drinking.
Aside from at-home, where can our subscribers drink your coffee?
Come and visit us! You’ll find Padre at our cafés in Brunswick East, Fitzroy at St David Dairy and South Melbourne Market in Melbourne, Paddington in Sydney and Noosa on the Sunshine Coast. We also work with a brilliant community of independent cafés and hospitality partners around Australia, so there’s a good chance there’s a Padre coffee being poured somewhere near you.
When you’re not at the roastery, where do you go to get your brew?
When we’re not at the roastery, we tend to gravitate towards neighbourhood cafés that care about the details without making coffee feel too serious. We’re lucky to work with brilliant hospitality partners around Australia, so there’s usually a great brew and a familiar face close by.
What are you looking forward to in the coffee industry at the moment? Any cool trends we should keep our eye on?
We’re excited by the attention decaf is finally receiving. Better green coffee, careful processing and more thoughtful roasting are turning it from an afterthought into a category with real character. More broadly, we’re interested in greater transparency at origin and experimentation that creates better flavour while still delivering meaningful value for producers.
Tell us about what’s in store for the rest of the year. Any exciting or upcoming projects to note?
We’ve got an exciting decaf project on the horizon with Angie Hernandez and the team at Los Nogales in southern Huila, Colombia. It’s a boundary-pushing coffee that brings together Angie’s expertise in microbiology, controlled fermentation and a remarkable process that uses ethyl acetate naturally derived from coffee mucilage. The result is 99.9% caffeine-free, yet extraordinarily vibrant: think candied banana, pineapple, orange and rose, grounded by a syrupy milk-chocolate sweetness. It’s the kind of coffee that makes you reconsider what decaf can be—bright, expressive and generous, whether brewed as espresso or filter. We’re looking forward to sharing more soon. Consider this a small glimpse of what’s coming from Padre Coffee.
Where can we expect to find you on a Saturday evening?
We answered this one as a team, so the honest answer is: all over the place. You might find us having dinner with friends, catching a gig, sitting at a neighbourhood pub or enjoying a very early night after a busy Saturday shift.
What do you consider your most notable coffee achievements? Specifically, how has coffee shaped you and brought along some unique and awesome experiences?
Still being here, curious and growing, after nearly two decades feels like an achievement in itself. Coffee has taken us to farms, introduced us to producers and partners around the world, and created friendships that have lasted across many seasons. Just as importantly, we’ve watched team members build careers, cafés find their communities and wholesale partners grow alongside us. Those relationships are the part we’re proudest of.
Any new roasters on the block you want to give a shoutout to?
There are so many roasters doing thoughtful work around Australia that it feels unfair to single out just one. What excites us most is the curiosity and generosity across the local industry: people sharing knowledge, taking sourcing seriously and finding new ways to make specialty coffee more welcoming.
THE COFFEE
ESPRESSO COFFEE
Daddy's Girl
Daddy’s Girl is a Padre classic: soft, full-bodied, naturally sweet and incredibly approachable. It’s designed to work just as happily as a straight espresso as it does with milk. The current blend brings together three coffees from Colombia and Brazil. Colombia Gaitania provides structure and sweetness, while two Brazilian components build body, richness and those familiar chocolate and caramel characteristics. The result is everything we want from an everyday espresso: mellow caramel, creamy hazelnut, honey and plenty of sweet milk chocolate. Rich and comforting without being heavy, and the kind of coffee we find ourselves coming back to again and again.
Coffee Origins: Colombia an Brazil
Tasting Notes: Notes of caramel, hazelnut, honey and milk chocolate.
Espresso Recipe:
Dose: 21g
Yield: 38g
Time: 27-32 seconds
Ratio: 1:1.8
Temp: 93°C
FILTER COFFEE
Hey Buddy
Hey Buddy is our go-to filter blend. Bright, floral and fruit-forward, but above all, easy drinking. The current blend brings together two coffees from Sidama, Ethiopia, using two different processing methods. Half comes from smallholder farmers surrounding Mofa Washing Station, where naturally processed coffee brings blueberry, plum, body and lingering fruit sweetness. The other half comes from smallholders supplying Dale Washing Station, where fully washed coffee adds jasmine aromatics, lemon acidity, clarity and structure.
Together, they create a filter coffee that balances juicy fruit sweetness with florality and a clean citrus finish. Hey Buddy is also part of Good Coffee Doing Good, our impact program supporting projects that create positive social, cultural and environmental change locally and at coffee-growing origin. A portion of sales from marked products supports our current project partners.
Coffee Origin: Ethiopia
Tasting Notes: Notes of fruit, florals and citrus.
Filter Recipe:
Dose: 19g
Water: 290g
Bloom: 60g for 50 seconds
Passes: 3 passes – 1st 90g / 2nd 90g / 3rd 50g
Time: 2:30
DARK ROAST
Troublemaker Espresso Blend
Troublemaker is our bolder take on espresso, built specifically to hold its own through milk without sacrificing complexity.
The blend combines coffees from Uganda, Brazil and Ethiopia. A washed Ugandan coffee from smallholders around Mt Elgon brings brightness and layered sweetness; an anaerobic natural from Fazenda Bela Vista in Brazil adds depth, body and chocolate character; and washed Ethiopian coffee from Sidama provides acidity and aromatic lift.
We roast Troublemaker a little further to build richness and intensity, resulting in a bold, full-bodied espresso with notes of honeycomb, hazelnut, dark chocolate and raisin. It’s big enough for milk, but there’s still plenty going on underneath.
Coffee Origins: Uganda, Brazil and Ethiopia
Tasting Notes: Notes of honeycomb, hazelnut, dark chocolate and raisin.
Espresso Recipe:
Dose: 21g
Yield: 38g
Time: 27-32 seconds
Ratio: 1:1.8
Temp: 94°C
PREMIUM FILTER
Ethiopia Chelchele Natural
Chelchele comes from Kochere Woreda in Ethiopia’s celebrated Yirgacheffe growing region, where several hundred smallholder farmers grow coffee in small, layered garden farms alongside enset, root vegetables and native shade trees.
The coffee is processed at Chelchele Washing Station, a station Padre has returned to for many years. Ripe cherries are hand sorted before being dried whole on raised beds for 8–25 days. This natural process intensifies the fruit sweetness and aromatics that make this coffee so distinctive.
This year’s lot is made up of native Ethiopian heirloom varieties grown at 1,900–2,400 MASL. In the cup, expect cherry, rose and peach, settling into a confectionery-like panela sweetness. It’s incredibly aromatic, juicy and sweet, with a perfumed finish that lingers long after the last sip. We’ve purchased coffee from Chelchele for many years, so we’re particularly excited to share this year’s harvest with Thieves.
Coffee Origins: Ethiopia
Tasting Notes: Notes of cherry, rose, peach and panela.
Filter Recipe:
Dose: 15g
Water: 240g
Bloom: 60g for 30 seconds
Passes: 3 - 1st 70g / 2nd 70g / 3rd 40g
Time: 2:40
Ratio: 1:16
Temp: 91°C