Peter Patisteas: Driving innovation and social change - through coffee Coffee Lab

S1E5 - Peter Patisteas has seen Melbourne’s coffee culture unfold and mature from a front row seat. He grew up learning the art of coffee roasting – at the time, a very manual process – from his father and uncle, in the Griffiths Brothers roastery.

After a foray into investment banking in London in the late 90s, he decided to go straight to the source and see how coffee starts life, on the plantations of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. And after a year, he returned to Melbourne, to settle into the family business.

Today, if you ask him his job title, he’ll say something like “coffee roaster from sunny Mulgrave”, but he’s actually now co-director of Griffiths Brothers, along with his brother-in-law, Chris Togias.

While the words “coffee” and “technology” don’t always fit into the same sentence, they do for Peter. He’s passionate about refining and advancing the processes around coffee production, from crop to cup, while also doing as much as possible to look after the people involved, and the environment.

We’re very excited to welcome Peter Patisteas to the Coffee Lab.

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