Our Partners
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Golden Bean World Series Overall Winner 2022
The Coffee Commune has been developed in Brisbane Australia as a unique hub for the coffee industry, combining a public café with professional facilities for roasters, baristas, and café owners. Located in Bowen Hills, it serves as a collaborative space where industry members can share knowledge, access green coffee beans, and roast their own blends.
Beyond just coffee, the Commune offers training programs, masterclasses, and cupping sessions to help members improve skills and innovate within the coffee business. Founded by Phillip Di Bella, it aims to strengthen the community by fostering collaboration, increasing buying power, and supporting the growth of independent coffee businesses.
While the public can enjoy high-quality coffee and food at the café, the Coffee Commune’s primary focus is on industry development. The space doubles as a live prototype for testing new products and technologies, and it can be booked for events or functions. Its combination of café, roastery, education, and networking makes it more than just a place to grab a coffee— it’s a professional and community-focused hub that helps shape Brisbane’s coffee scene.
Coffee Commune is expanding its successful model into the US, starting with some very specific community projects like Devotion Coffee.
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The Golden Bean is a long-running international coffee-roasting competition and conference that began in Australia about 20 years ago with the goal of highlighting and celebrating the skill of coffee roasting. Since then, it has expanded into a global event held in regions such as North America, Australasia, and China. Roasters submit coffees across multiple brew categories—including Espresso, Milk-Based, Filter, and others—where entries are blind-judged by trained tasters. With more than 2,500 coffees from over 1,000 roasters evaluated each year, the Golden Bean has become the largest peer-judged coffee-roasting competition in the world, awarding Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals and naming overall champions based on performance across key categories.
The event functions not only as a competition but also as a major industry gathering that supports networking, education, and benchmarking within the specialty-coffee community.
Its results are often used to identify emerging flavor trends and to recognize the world’s top roasters each year. While many consider Golden Bean a valuable platform for exposure and improvement. For many roasters, Golden Bean remains an influential and meaningful way to validate their craft and engage with the global roasting community.
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FounderIt all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.
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FounderIt all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more.
Meet the Team
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Paul’s family originated from Conzano, Italy, with his grandparents emigrating to Ingham, North Queensland in the early 1900s. His grandfather worked as a sugarcane cutter and eventually expanded to owning four sugarcane farms—instilling in the family a legacy of determination, faith, and purpose.
Paul studied Business Management (Marketing) at the Queensland Institute of Technology and began a 16-year career with Mobil Oil Australia, where he advanced through eight promotions. His most significant role was Planning Director for Mobil Oil New Guinea, ensuring fuel supply across five South Pacific nations and supporting local communities in a challenging social environment.
After returning to Australia, Paul worked with Pizza Hut and later joined Jetset Travel Australia to lead a major organisational turnaround for Air New Zealand. He then returned to Brisbane, becoming an equity partner in a national coffee brand, where he helped grow the retail network from 3 to 15 stores before selling his stake.
Paul and his wife later founded a successful national cosmetic injectables business. During this period, he developed relationships with influential U.S. bishops, including Bishop Bernie Wade—connections that helped inspire the creation of Devotion Coffee.
Drawing on a lifetime in retail, franchising, leadership, and purpose-driven work, Paul now channels his experience into building Devotion Coffee: a premium brand dedicated not only to quality but to uplifting lives and creating meaningful impact.
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Bernie L. Wade Sr. (born June 29, 1963, in Lakewood, Ohio) is an American minister, entrepreneur, and best-selling author. He has held several leadership roles, including Senior Pastor, Chief Operations Officer of the Christian Brotherhood, president of the Christian World Network, and vice-president of Spread the Spirit of Love. He currently serves as Presiding Bishop of the International Circle of Faith (ICOF), a global network of non-denominational ministers and ministries that originated in 1932 in Cleveland, Ohio, with historical roots in the Apostolic Faith movement.
Wade comes from a historically notable family, tracing paternal lineage to Sir William Wade of Queen Elizabeth I’s Privy Council and maternal ancestry to Scottish Clan Bruce immigrants. His family, originally from Yorkshire and later early settlers in Virginia, includes figures such as Armigil Wade (“the English Columbus”) and Revolutionary War soldier Captain Edmond Wade.
Educationally, Wade holds multiple PhDs from Life College, ICOF Colleges and Universities, and Global Evangelical Christian College. He serves as chancellor of Life College & Seminary and holds doctorates in theology, Christian education, nonprofit management, and clinical counseling. He also advises various Christian educational organizations, including the American Association of Higher Education (AAHEA).
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Sean Edwards has been deeply involved in the café and coffee industry for more than 25 years, having owned multiple cafés and coffee-roasting businesses. He is the creator of signature industry events such as Café Biz and the Golden Bean, and has developed influential education streams across the café and coffee sector. Through his global company, he provides industry consulting via offices in Australia, North America, and China. Café Culture International serves as the flagship media organisation supporting these events, competitions, and consulting services.
Sean believes that Café Culture International has played a pivotal role in shaping today’s sophisticated coffee and café culture. As the publisher of the first dedicated national café magazine, the company helped drive the growth of high-quality café food and beverage models across Australia—a market that the rest of the world continues to look to for innovation. Even today, Café Culture remains closely connected with the pioneers driving change behind the scenes.
Sean approaches his work with the enthusiasm of a hobbyist, seeing each day as an opportunity for discovery and connection with the people who move the industry forward.
A natural networker, Sean thrives on building relationships through positive communication and nurturing success step-by-step across all his partnerships.
