A GLASS House Mountains coffee-growing couple is putting two new varieties to the test as researchers tackle one of the biggest obstacles preventing Australia from growing more of its own coffee.
Australians drink more than six billion cups of coffee each year, yet an estimated 99.7 per cent of coffee consumed nationally is imported.
Despite significant areas being suitable for production, Australian growers face high labour costs and limited access to varieties suited to efficient mechanical harvesting.
A federally funded research program led by Southern Cross University in Lismore will now trial new coffee varieties across different Australian growing regions.
For Glasshouse Plantation growers Paul Ziebarth and Lisa Palu, the research cannot come quickly enough. The couple has about 3000 K7 coffee trees at their property but have found the variety difficult to harvest efficiently by machine.
“K7 was bred in Kenya 90 years ago,” Paul said. “While it grows well in our climate and tastes good, it flowers and therefore fruits over four to five months, making it difficult to viably harvest with our big machine.”
Rather than wait for the research results, Paul and Lisa have planted two varieties included in the program. “We couldn’t wait and were the first in Australia to commercially plant two of the new varieties that will be researched by Southern Cross Uni, in the hope they will work better for us,” Lisa said. The couple planted 1000 Marsellesa trees, bred in Nicaragua, and 1000 IPR107 trees, developed in Brazil, over Christmas 2025.
Paul said the semi-dwarf varieties should require less pruning and could prove better suited to mechanical harvesting. The early signs are promising, with the young trees beginning to flower.
Lisa said the IPR107 trees flowered first, while the Marsellesa were loaded with buds. “They seem to be flowering much more synchronistically, which is critical for machine harvesting,” she said.
Glasshouse Plantation is meanwhile finishing its 2026 K7 harvest, with the coffee expected to be served to visitors early next year after drying and processing. Anyone driving to the Glass House Mountains lookout over the next few weeks can see Paul and Lisa’s flowering coffee trees along the way at Glasshouse Plantation, 122 Glass House-Woodford Road, Glass House Mountains.
