JUST 18 months since opening its doors, Fremantle’s Think or Perish café has claimed top honours in the inaugural Fremantle Coffee Cup — a victory co-owner James Craig calls “a double win.”

Mr Craig, a Fremantle local with deep roots in the global coffee industry, is no stranger to accolades. Before launching Think or Perish, he had already made a name for himself as a roasting champion, coffee educator, and international judge. But it’s this latest win, earned on home soil, that he says carries unique meaning.

• OUR judges have called it, and the inaugural Fremantle Coffee Cup has been awarded to Think or Perish, much to the delight of owners James Craig and Ruolin Ding. For a tiny kiosk tucked away in the Fremantle Malls, their brew packs a mighty punch, and when you read their background, you’ll understand why.

Over the moon

“It’s just what a young business needs. I’m over the moon, if you can’t tell,” he says.

The journey to this point has taken Mr Craig far beyond the bounds of Fremantle, into the coffee heartlands of Ethiopia, Sumatra, and Yunnan, and through years of roasting, teaching, and learning in the field.

“Like learning anything, it sort of happens in stages,” Mr Craig said.

“Sometimes it takes going to the next stage to realise that you didn’t really know much about what you thought you did know about… It wasn’t until you get onto the farm… you realise, oh, that’s why there’s passionfruit in that particular coffee — because of the intercropping and what it’s growing around.”

Mr Craig’s passion for origin exploration is more than just academic — it’s the foundation of his ethos.

“It’s like a chef. The really good chefs, they know exactly where their product comes from.

“They’ve got relationships with the people that produce it. It all becomes part of the flavour… you know, coffee is people.”

Those relationships have taken Mr Craig to the Gayo mountains of Sumatra, where in 2014 — fresh off winning the Australian Roasting Championships — he was invited to help train farmers in cupping and sensory analysis.

“There was sample roasting involved, just teaching them quality, tracking how to identify quality and how to identify negative attributes. And I just got addicted to that; you make beautiful friends.”

• Think or Perish owners Ruolin Ding and James Craig toast their win in the Fremantle Coffee Cup with mayor Hannah Fitzhardinge (already a big fan), competition sponsor Tom Wisdom from Plantagenet Wines (left), and the brains behind the whole caffiene drink-off, Barefoot Media director Simon Holland. Photo by Steve Grant

It was on one of these global teaching missions that Mr Craig met his wife, Ruolin Ding, a biochemical engineer turned micro-roastery manager who joined one of his courses in Beijing.

“She came to my class to learn more about coffee roasting, because she was already managing a micro-roastery and was already well into it,” Craig says. “We fell in love and we’re still talking about coffee.”

Ms Ding has recently completed a master’s in agronomy — a degree the couple sees as key to their future coffee ambitions.

“That’s why the competition became so important to us, because we’re the roaster as well. This reflects beautifully on the product that we put together,” Mr Craig says. 

“The faster we can get this up and moving and self-sustainable and staffed and really humming, the quicker we can get back to the farms.”

That plan includes splitting time between Fremantle, China, and the farms they support.

Deeply connected

“We envision splitting time — so two weeks here, two weeks away — and we’re deeply connected to Beijing. Mama and Baba are in Beijing, so that’s always going to be part of the triangle.”

Mr Craig’s connection to China goes back a decade, having judged the Best of Yunnan coffee competition from 2014 to 2019 and trained baristas and roasters in cities like Wuhan, Chengdu, and Shenzhen.

“I knew the primary industry of China so well after five years of going there for two or three weeks every year. It was a gift to be able to go and speak to all the roasters and the baristas, as opposed to the farmers.”

These international influences are now brewed into every cup at Think or Perish, which uses beans from farms Mr Craig has personally visited — including Ethiopia where the dominant Arabica bean originates.

“Any Ethiopian coffee we use, I’ve been to Ethiopia. I spent a good three weeks on a field trip and case studies, and all the different regions and all the beautiful heirloom pockets of Ethiopia.”

But what sets Think or Perish apart isn’t just its beans. It’s Mr Craig’s fastidious attention to the craft, a trait he partly attributes to his musical background.

“I was a musician for so long… I think it’s attention to detail. It’s the desire to be consistent and a desire to understand every variable and get every one of them under control to the best of your ability,” he says. 

“I’ve always had a fire to be the best at what I do, and it’s in the family. My uncle’s the lead guitarist from The Divinyls.”

That same fire burns brightly at Think or Perish, which has now earned its place among Fremantle’s best — not just as a café, but as a cultural and culinary crossroads where passion, science, and storytelling are served daily in every cup.

“This win is exciting because it reflects the whole journey,” Craig says. “It’s not just about what’s in the cup, but everything behind it.”

by STEVE GRANT