Our Story
Rubra Coffee – artisan coffee roasters and purveyors of fine tea
For our founders, their passion for consuming the finest quality coffee started long before Rubra Coffee was founded. While selling and supplying coffee machines and beans to Western Australia’s business sector, they could see there was a real need in the domestic market for high quality, competitively priced roasted coffee that could be enjoyed at home.
That was 2004 and with at least two other coffee roasters in Perth at the time, our attention was turned to becoming roast masters.
Having worked with prominent coffee roasters both interstate and overseas for a number of years, we immersed ourselves into the depths of learning and discovering the art and science of what truly goes into the perfect cup of coffee.
We imported a Probat roaster from Germany and after acquiring the knowledge and skills used to roast coffee; from sourcing high quality green beans, carefully developing the best coffee profiles, to creating custom blends and delicious flavours all while understanding the brewing and extraction process; Rubra Coffee was born.
From seed to cup
Sourcing high quality green beans was just the start to our coffee roasting journey. At Rubra Coffee it was important to us to not only source premium quality green beans, but to develop long lasting partnerships while making a positive impact for coffee farmers, cooperatives, communities and the next generation of innovators within our industry.
We spent endless hours roasting, brewing and tasting our coffees to ensure our blends and single origin brews were perfect every time. Working alongside renowned Australian roast masters at our purpose built roastery in O’Connor, Perth we developed a keen sense for the perfectly roasted bean and truly understood the seed to cup experience.
While creating a large retail presence and network, word soon spread amongst Perth coffee enthusiasts. Our small-batch coffee roastery was consistently delivering high quality delicious coffee.
Our unique signature coffee blends and single origin coffees quickly became highly regarded for their distinct flavour, complexity and taste. Roasting daily, Rubra Coffee began hitting retailer’s shelves and cafes started brewing our beans – but we didn’t stop there.
Our team began developing a diverse range of innovative products to meet the needs of our customers. While at the same time, ensuring Rubra Coffee continued to provide the finest quality, hand roasted coffee.
Roasting coffee is our speciality, but we also have something else up our sleeve
After showcasing our artisan coffee at the Sydney Royal Fine Food Show in 2006 and receiving four medals of excellence, our reputation for roasting high-quality coffee was firmly cemented throughout Australia. Over the next 12 years, Rubra Coffee was awarded an additional 21 medals of excellence, making our coffee roasters Western Australia’s most awarded.
In the years that followed, our artisan coffees continued to make their way into retail stores, homes and cafes right around Australia and with an ever-growing online presence, today our customer base continues to grow nationally as well as overseas.
With an extensive product line up catering to the tastes of all coffee lovers, our finest quality roasted coffee is available in the following ranges:
- Rubra Blends – We have expertly crafted seven different and beautifully balanced coffee blends as part of our Rubra Blends collection. From sweet to bitter, full bodied to soft and everything in between, our roasters have created signature blends as unique and as individual as the coffee drinker themselves.
- Single Origin – Our four single origin coffees have been expertly sourced from South America and South East Asia. The uniqueness of each growing region’s temperature, soil quality and elevation all weigh in on the beans flavour and characteristics, giving our single origin coffee their rich and distinctive flavour profile.
- Coffee Pods – Experience our delicious, high-quality coffee blends that we’ve especially packed into biodegradable coffee pods. Each pod contains our most awarded and popular blends which are expertly blended and roasted in our purpose built roastery in O’Connor, Perth. We only use premium quality imported beans.
- Coffee-in-a-Bag – Freshly roasted Arabica coffee is especially made available in single serve biodegradable coffee bags – because at Rubra Coffee, we believe everyone deserves to enjoy a decent cup. Our Coffee-in-a-Bag is simply awesome coffee made easy. With no fillers, freeze-dried or instant coffee, just 100% high-quality ground coffee.
- Café Reserve – our Café Reserve blends are designed specifically for the café market in mind, from traditional espresso to more delicate and refined flavours.
At Rubra Coffee, we didn’t stop at roasting high-quality coffee…
We’re also purveyors of fine tea. For more than 15 years we have been offering an array of classic and flavoured high graded teas available as loose-leaf or filled silken pyramid tea bags.
Imported direct from Sri Lanka, we personally visited estates to understand the traditional methods and processes involved in growing, plucking, rolling, firing and drying, grading and assessing tea. A practice that has been used for more than 100 years.
We’re proud of our fine teas, having created our own flavours and speciality blends that only we offer, including our Lemon Iced Tea concentrate, which is formulated with real Ceylon tea extract and a refreshing natural lemon flavouring. Plus, our Chai Spice Latte – a delicious, warming and inviting blend of black tea, exotic flavours and spices that’s naturally fragrant and simply captivating.
And, for those that have an appreciation for chocolate, in a world where coffee tends to dominate, we couldn’t go past developing a pure and indulgent chocolate experience with our high-quality drinking chocolate. Made from top graded cocoa bean varieties that we source from West Africa, this region is renowned around the world as the largest, most superior cocoa producer.
Relationships are our linchpin
From humble beginnings and with almost 20 years’ experience, Rubra Coffee, a family owned and operated Western Australian business, has grown as a multi-award-winning artisan coffee roaster and purveyor of fine teas.
It is this growth that has seen Rubra Coffee be enjoyed throughout Australia and on an international scale thanks to our people. Our dedicated team that we are privileged to work alongside each and every day who help us to consistently deliver high quality coffee and tea.
At Rubra Coffee, it’s a real collective, where we come together as a whole to make decisions on our future, while sharing in the world of what high-quality coffee and tea has to offer.
We value our well-established relationships and strong links with our devoted team, small family farms as well as their communities and larger co-operatives, like-minded cafes and retailers, as well as coffee enthusiasts at home.
Brewing coffee is both an art and a science
At Rubra Coffee we understand that so much goes into a cup of coffee – it’s by no means a simply process and that’s why we established the WA Barista Training Lab, a state-of-the-art training centre.
Our experienced teachers provide hands on, practical skills and training to empower people from the home brewer to the highly experienced barista about the science behind the perfect cup of coffee. We want to arm you with the knowledge, science and education about all things coffee.
Offering a full introduction about the coffee plant and cherry, to how coffee beans are harvested and processed and the impact this has on the coffees different flavour profiles. We also examine the roasting process and the chemical changes that occur when roasting green beans as well as develop an understanding as to why the roast freshness and the age of the coffee is so important.
