On The Land
31 January, 2026
Award winning coffee grower expands crop
MAREEBA's award-winning coffee producers Jack Murat Coffee is expanding to cater for increased demand.
Based at Tyrconnell Road near Mareeba, with the first coffee planted in 2014, the farm already produces from its 40 hectares, but with the additional 50,000 trees planted, will grow to a total 60 hectares according to Jack Murat Coffee head of coffee, Sergio Londoro.
“Because of our growing conditions here, it would be expected that this new block will be ready for first harvest in another three years or so, and while we tend to our existing 40 hectares, we are eagerly awaiting the maturing of this new block to meet our increased demand for our coffee,” he said.
Having spent 13 years in his native Columbia working as a grower, taster, roaster and a coffee shop owner, Sergio has quickly adapted his coffee industry knowledge to coffee production in Australia.
“There’s a huge difference in some areas, with Columbia’s production being more labour intensive from harvesting and other areas,” he said.
“For example, in Columbia, harvesting and coffee cherry selection is all done by hand so it’s very labour intensive with experienced workers picking only those that are mature and ripe.
“Most of the harvesters are over 60 years of age and have trained vision to select cherries of a particular colour and maturity.
“However, at Jack Murat Coffee we have two mechanical harvesters picking the crop instead of a small army of people, and the mechanisation and technology does not stop there.”
He said the harvested cherries are placed firstly in a hopper, then they pass through machinery that selects the mature cherries by the skin colour and discards those that are immature.
“That way, we only process the ripe cherries and don’t use under-ripe or over-ripe cherries, and use close to 97% of ripe cherries,” he continued.
“That way we can produce our coffee to the same standards every time we process our harvest, and this makes a huge difference in terms of our reliable standards and coffee product standards for our growing market and discerning coffee drinkers who use our specialty coffee.”
He said that Jack Murat Coffee processes various smaller selections of fermented coffee to meet demand.
“Coffee fermentation further increases the quality of our coffee,” Sergio said.
“It makes a big difference in terms of our specialty coffees, adding exotic and different flavours, all achieved through our natural coffee fermentation process.”
