The Story
Proud Mary was founded by husband and wife Nolan and Shari Hirte in 2009 in Melbourne, Australia.
Nolan had won the Western Australia Barista Championship in 2006 and was eager to start his own business, knowing he needed Melbourne’s cutting-edge international platform to achieve unlimited potential.
He followed Shari to Melbourne, and the pair — now married for 13 years with two children, Felix and Rosie — built what would become one of Melbourne’s most influential coffee companies.
Along with a small handful of folks in Melbourne, Proud Mary became a household name in Australia and is widely associated with igniting the global “AU café” movement.
When they launched, Australia was primarily an espresso-drinking nation where filter coffee and specialty lots were largely absent — Nolan was among the first to change that after a road trip along the West Coast of the United States shifted his perspective.
Nolan and Shari came to the US in 2017, opening a flagship café and roastery in Portland, Oregon, bringing something disruptive and world-class to the heart of ‘coffee country.’
The family moved to Austin in 2020 to open a café there while keeping one foot firmly in Oregon with a ‘summer home’ in Tillamook.
In 2025, Proud Mary was ranked the fourth best café globally at the World’s 100 Best Coffee Shops Gala in Madrid, highlighting its significant impact on the international coffee scene.
The company has raised more than US$500,000 in crowdfunding investment to expand its presence in the United States, underscoring market confidence in their proven business model.
Sourcing & Relationships
Proud Mary sources high quality coffee direct from origin through deep and meaningful relationships with coffee farmers, telling stories of the product and the process to fight for more equitable practices.
The company is known for its direct trade relationships with coffee farmers, ensuring transparency about exactly where beans come from and how they are produced, deeply invested in supporting farmers with fair compensation and environmental sustainability.
Instead of relying on traditional importers, Proud Mary sources beans directly from the farms, ensuring farmers are paid fairly and coffee is grown using sustainable methods while working with farmers to improve quality and invest in farming techniques for long-term relationships.
Nolan sources all the beans for the company, travelling far and wide to find the absolute best, often going off the beaten path to find undiscovered gems from special farms overlooked by other coffee hunters, then revealing these finds to help farmers get the credit and money due for their hard work.
While many coffee roasters select beans via sample packages sent by coffee farms, Hirte builds relationships with small producers by traveling directly to the source.
Often conducting green sourcing trips in an off-the-cuff manner, directed by the promise of quality coffee, Nolan travels to meet the farmers and build real relationships with them.
At Proud Mary, they utilize only fresh seasonal components direct from their amazing producer partnerships at origin, supporting a sustainable supply chain and direct relationships with producers.
Roasting Philosophy
The pursuit of excellence is at the core of Proud Mary’s operations, ensuring every step from bean sourcing to roasting and brewing is carried out with utmost care and attention to detail, with a highly trained team constantly seeking to improve their craft.
They blend the innovative spirit of Melbourne’s coffee culture with Portland’s adventurous taste buds, resulting in a refined yet experimental approach to food, beverage, and service while joyfully nerding out on the product, people, and process.
Proud Mary’s innovative approach extends to technical precision in roasting and storage. Their roasting process involves spending days roasting, resting and cupping single-pound sample batches at different profiles to dial in the perfect profile for each coffee, then roasting an entire 60-kilo bag in one day, blending batches together for uniformity, aging in valve-lidded buckets for nine days in a temperature-stable cellar, then vacuum-packing in single-pound bricks and freezing in a large chest freezer.
Nolan is a firm believer in freezing roasted coffee, roasting a month’s worth at once and freezing it rather than roasting the same coffee once or twice weekly with profile adjustments.
Rather than have customers navigate the world of coffee flavours, origins and processing methods, Proud Mary helps customers choose their coffees based on how they’re feeling with options simply categorized as Mild, Curious and Wild — an easy-to-understand, playful categorisation that makes their specialty coffees accessible to all.
Their highest tier represents “real deal outliers, these are the most rare and exotic coffees in the world” that represent “true flavor and the essence of our passion for coffee.”
What to Try
Ghost Rider is a sweet and fruity blend made up of natural coffees from South America and Africa that has won 5 medals at the Golden Bean awards.
Wild by blend standards, Ghost Rider is comprised of naturally processed coffees from Ethiopia and Brazil — one fruit-driven and the other creamy — with big buttery and creamy body, syrupy and thick, jammy, red grape, and stewed apricot notes.
The Humbler blend has been designed to cut through milk and create a chocolatey latte or a rich and syrupy espresso, approachable and easy to brew, making great coffee accessible to everyone.
Angel Wings is a smooth and sweet blend made up of washed coffees from Central and South America that can be enjoyed with milk or black. These three signature blends represent Proud Mary’s accessible approach to specialty coffee while maintaining exceptional quality. Their lineup of Mild, Curious and Wild blends is crafted to meet every mood, from smooth and comforting to bright, unexpected and beautifully adventurous, sourced direct from origin and roasted with precision to deliver layered, original flavor that celebrates the farmers and regions behind every bean.
Proud Mary’s dedication to quality is exemplified by their focus on sourcing rare varieties, most notably Geisha coffee, a highly prized varietal renowned for its delicate floral notes, bright acidity, and complex flavors, demonstrating their commitment to offering the pinnacle of coffee experiences.
Current limited offerings include Honduras La Salvaje 1st Place Cup of Excellence Geisha ($80), Panama Finca Momoto Geisha Natural ($40), and Mexico Santa Cruz Geisha Washed ($40), alongside seasonal releases like their Chocolate Bunnies blend.