Paradox Coffee Roasters: For the people

paradox coffee roasters

People are at the heart of the coffee industry, and Paradox Coffee Roasters puts them first, from those growing and roasting its coffee to those serving and enjoying it.

Paradox Coffee Roasters puts its people first. From day one, the team have stood by its mission, “For The People” in a commitment to those that grow, roast, educate, serve and enjoy their coffee.

“It’s so important to prioritise and value people every step of the journey. This includes the growers we source from, our incredible Head Roaster who creates our blends and single origins, the Paradox team who gathers and educates our wholesale partners, and the baristas crafting and serving our coffee,” says Danielle Saleh of Paradox Coffee Roasters.

“Every person on the journey plays such a significant part in creating the coffee our customers enjoy, and we understand the importance of valuing people every step of the way.”

A family business, Danielle serves as its Creative Director, her husband James Rodger its Sales Director, and her sister Nicole Saleh as Marketing Director.

“It is about bringing our deep passion and knowledge for coffee and the industry together and developing a business that is making a difference in the way we operate and the products we serve,” Nicole says.

paradox coffee roasters
Paradox roasts all of its coffees using state-of-the-art Brambati equipment.

With roasteries, labs, and training facilities in both Sydney and the Gold Coast, Paradox Coffee Roasters has assembled a group of passionate coffee professionals.

“Our team is incredibly important throughout the whole process. Our people are some of the best in the industry who share our vision ‘for the people’, investing their skills, knowledge, and passion with the coffee community,” James says.

Head Roaster Paul Golding, National Sales Manager Nic Naso, National Commercial Manager Malcolm Bible, Technical Manager Paul Martin and Training Manager Melita Ferraro are some of the key people who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the Paradox Team.

When it comes to developing its coffee, Paradox Coffee Roasters begin by thinking about the ultimate flavours and experience it wants to provide to the end customer. It then works in reverse, identifying origins that will provide those flavours, sustainably sourcing quality green beans from select coffee producers.

Paradox roasts its coffee line-up on state-of-the-art Brambati equipment and its coffee range includes a spectrum of four distinct blends.

“Our roasting team are part-artist and part-scientist, understanding the intrinsic flavours and unique characteristics that each origin coffee contributes to skilfully develop our award-winning blends and achieve our desired end taste profile,” James says.

Paul Golding, Paradox Head Roaster adds, “We know that different marketplaces and customers prefer different flavour profiles, so our range of blends are contrasting in character, flavour, body, acidity and mouthfeel. This gives our wholesale café partners the opportunity to decide which Paradox blend will appeal to their customers and work best for their business.”

paradox coffee roasters
Paradox is committed to those that grow, roast, educate, serve and enjoy its coffee.

Its Paper Moon blend has a rich flavour, with notes of black cherries, plum, and chocolate. James says this blend has a bold and powerful flavour that comes alive in milk.

Penny Lane is Paradox’s crowd-pleasing espresso blend, with intriguing notes of salted caramel, dark chocolate, and cinnamon.

James says, “we’ve created a blend using a variety of different origins to give the coffee great depth and complexity”.

He adds that winning a gold-medal for organic coffee is recognition of a “truly superb blend”. The award-winning Purple Rain Organic is Paradox’s versatile blend with apricot, chocolate almond, and brown sugar notes.

Picasso Baby is a seasonal blend crafted to showcase the finest coffee Paradox has to offer, with prominent blackberry flavours, underlined by cola and dark chocolate. “It’s an exceptionally exciting blend and is a real taste sensation with crisp fruit notes. It’s utilised not only in milk-based coffee but as a black coffee for espresso and filter,” James says.

Harmonising with these blends is a single origin program featuring two or more micro lots that Paradox Coffee Roasters highlights each month, showcasing unique flavour profiles and processing methods.

The roaster has also recently launched the Paradox Single Origin Collective, a program that allows cafés to expand their single origin offering, giving café’s the opportunity to taste and learn more about what is unique and great about the featured origins before purchasing.

“The Paradox Single Origin Collective program helps our wholesale café partners and baristas increase their knowledge, passion, and appreciation of the fantastic origin coffees that we’re sourcing, so these cafés can deliver an exceptional single origin experience to their end customers,” Nicole says.

Paradox Coffee Roasters
The Colombia Purple Caturra Passionfruit single origin from Paradox Coffee Roasters was featured on the April 2021 cover of BeanScene.

“This free sample pack each month gives a preview of our featured origins before they’re released and allows café owners and their team to get to know the coffees before they purchase. But it’s not limited to existing customers, we welcome any specialty cafés that would like to be included in this program to reach out and join our collective.”

The Paradox Training Academy is also pillar of the brand, taking a holistic approach to coffee training and education for baristas and café owners, and adapting to the different learning styles and skill levels of its students.

“We believe in the growth and success of our wholesale café partners, so we support them through education, systematic training, premium equipment, reliable service, and creative branding and innovations to deliver a consistently great coffee experience,” says Nic Naso, National Sales Manager.

Paradox’s coffee training focuses on many topics, including espresso, alternative brewing, cupping, blend and single origin education, and getting the best from your equipment. “Our training also supports café owners to maximise their coffee business,” James says.

“Education is important if we’re going to see our wholesale customers thrive, whether it’s someone that is new to coffee and just starting out or baristas at the top of their game. We treat training like a journey and it may not be the same path for everybody.”
Paradox saw potential to reach a wider audience in 2020 and is launching a dedicated online coffee training academy this year.

“We believe a barista needs access to training and information when it is convenient for them, so we created an online training platform that they can access from their phone, tablet, or computer, and train at any time,” Nicole says.

“As well as providing training videos and written material it is important to us that the online platform provides two-way communication, with forums that we can moderate so baristas and café owners can have discussions on a wide range of topics, learning from each other as well as from our Paradox team.”

Another trend that became particularly prominent in 2020 is an increased focus on the at-home coffee market. Knowing that there is an increasing demand for convenience when making coffee at home, Paradox Coffee Roasters wanted to launch into the coffee capsule market with capsules that are biodegradable. It recently did so with two varieties developed according to the profile of its popular whole bean coffee blends, Paper Moon and Picasso Baby.

“The pandemic saw a lot more people buying coffee online and we’re excited to provide great quality coffee for those brewing at home,” says James.

The team at Paradox are focused for the year ahead with their eyes firmly fixed on their vision.

“We look forward to continuing to innovate and create incredible coffee for the people,” says Danielle.

For more information, visit www.paradoxroasters.com, call 1800 849 335 or email roastery@paradoxroasters.com

This article appears in the April 2021 edition of BeanScene. Subscribe HERE.

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