Fourteen years on from launching Coffee Mentality, Ian Abadiano has become a leader in Queensland’s emerging specialty coffee scene.
What drove you to start Coffee Mentality within Brisbane’s coffee scene?
My wife and I started with the idea of giving myself a job that I would enjoy and feel at home in a way, because we spend so much time at work.
I started Coffee Mentality 14 years ago as a way to create meaningful work for myself. After more than a decade in banking, I realised I was earning good money, but I wasn’t feeling fulfilled by my work. As a migrant from the Philippines, I wanted to do something that felt purposeful. My wife and I decided to do something on our own, even without a business background. Originally, we thought about wine and alcohol, but we decided to get a coffee van.
We opened our first café in South Brisbane in 2014, and our growth since then has been organic. We’ve expanded to multiple locations and established a roastery, even though that wasn’t part of the original plan.
The business has always been driven by three values: the people, the passion, and the planet. That’s the core of what we are and how we’ve grown.
You’re a real champion of Queensland’s coffee community, and everyone getting together to improve coffee. Why is that so important to you?
This comes back to the people and passion parts of our values. Victoria and New South Wales are pretty much set in their coffee industries, but specialty coffee in Queensland is still very young. Our idea is to unite into being a more collaborative industry, rather than a competitive one.
In March we ran a fundraiser for Queensland’s three Australian Coffee Champions – Karl Lee, Amy Zhang, and Danny Andrade. These competitors are already so passionate about coffee, that’s why they’ve reached these heights, but what people don’t necessarily understand is they’re also helping promote the industry.
The World Coffee Championships are like an Olympic event, but it’s tough to get funding. We want to change the way people think about things, and we want to show the best side of coffee.
I like to act on things, and I hope we show a good example to the industry and inspire others to collaborate, connect, and unite.
Right now I’m also building a directory of people in Queensland’s coffee industry who are certified to judge at competitive levels to use as a tool to bring everyone together.
We want to bring everyone together, from the coffee producers in Queensland through to the cafés. It’s not easy, but it’s worthwhile.
What exciting things have you got on the horizon not only for yourself, but also for Coffee Mentality?
We look at all aspects of coffee. The first is ourselves, we have to grow as an ecosystem – growing our community and partners. Then, we must look at the industry as the foundation of what we are building. Finally, we’re looking at the entire Australian coffee community as a driver to build connections.
I grew up in the Philippines, and coffee has always been a major driver of building industry there and creating more deforestation-free coffee at origin.
We have an ongoing research partnership with Jack Murat and Griffith University where we work with specific genotypes in coffee that are suited to Australian conditions.
We also have a focus in the Pacific, places like the Cook Islands, Samoa, and Vanuatu, to build capacity in the community.
What we did at our roastery last year was less normal coffee tasting events, and more around things like soil science, plant growth, agroforestry, and sustainability.
We’re also looking at building our presence in Japan as we already send coffee there, and we have our eyes on other global coffee destinations.
I love what I do, and I could not imagine myself stopping.
This article appears in the April 2026 edition of BeanScene. Subscribe HERE.
