How Our Christmas Coffee Blend Is Made: From May Tasting to November Release
28 October 2026
Fish River Christmas
It's not long now until the fat man in the red suit will be coming down the chimney. The run into Christmas is always a busy time for us here at Fish River. Here are some of the goings on behind the scenes at Fish River Roasters for the run into Christmas.
The Heat!
The weather gets hot and our coffee roaster runs at around 220 celsius and the roaster’s afterburner runs between 400-500 celsius. Standing next to all that hot steel in the run into Christmas has a “this is a metal sauna” kind of feel.
To beat the heat we start roasting around 6am and try to finish by midday. T-shirts and shorts become the roasting dress code. We keep the kitchen freezer stocked with icy poles and iced water for the roaster and pack room.
There is a big fan near the roaster but once it is really hot it just blows the already hot air around and can feel like standing in front of a large hair dryer. We tried a portable air con system but the roaster sucks in a lot of air including the cold air from the air con!
The hotter weather requires some reworking of our roast profiles, the recipe we follow for each bean type. Everything happens faster with the hotter weather so we make modifications to the roast profiles as we go.
Christmas Blend
The creation of the Christmas blend usually starts around May. That's when we start tasting potential candidate coffees for the blend. By the end of June we finalise the Christmas Blend coffees so that we can have them shipped to us in October. Ready to go for the release in November.
There is always a nervous wait for the first batch. Is the coffee we tasted back in May going to do what we need it to do in the blend in November? There is a lot of note checking, some small batch testing and profile tweaks to make sure the Christmas Blend works!
The Christmas Blend gets more popular each year. It is a different flavour profile to our main coffees, fruity, winey and fun.
The Fish River Christmas Party
Sometimes it's fancy dress, the food is always great, Jeff our service manager sometimes brings the wine he has made, Chris our GM brings some home brew and Pete gives a speech (a year in review type thing). There are some sore heads the next morning but a good time is had by all.
We are busy right up until Christmas Eve
Last year, the two weeks before Christmas were the two busiest weeks of the year for us. Around 50% up on a normal week's roasting. We all clock a few extra hours, everyone helps out on the roast/pack/delivery cycle and we all look forward to the Christmas Break.
This year, like last year, we will be open, with a small team, between Christmas and New Years. Tuesday the 29th, 30th and 31st of December. So if you run out of something we can get it on the courier to you and we will also be filling internet orders.
For our cafe customers, over Christmas, even when the office is closed, we always have a coffee machine technician on call. The usual process applies, call 6331 7171, listen to the message and press 1 to be put through to the service tech.
