Growing up in the '80s and '90s on a steady diet of Dad's beer froth and second-hand smoke, I figured I was pretty well immune to most things. Turns out, no amount of Dukes of Hazzard reruns or lead-painted action figures could prepare me for the things that can stay with you after years in the job.

After 17 years in the Queensland Fire Department, I eventually realised I wasn't travelling as well as I thought I was.

So I stepped away.

That's where 3rd Alarm started.

Not because Australia needed another coffee company.

I wanted to build something for the people still doing the job.

Somewhere that celebrates the parts of the fire service we all miss. The station banter. The dark humour. The coffee around the kitchen table. The stories that only make sense to someone who's done it. And somewhere that doesn't pretend the tougher parts don't exist either.

Why coffee?

Because every good conversation in a fire station seems to start with one.

It's where the shift catches up after a job.

It's where someone quietly checks in on a mate without making a big deal about it.

Coffee was just the excuse.

The people are the point.

We also make bloody good coffee.

No wanky infusions or man buns. Just full-bodied, quality coffee, the kind your grandad would’ve drunk after fixing a tractor, chopping the heads off half a dozen chickens, and pushing a sheep’s prolapsed butthole back into place.

Quality coffee, roasted fresh on the Sunshine Coast by people who know exactly what they're doing.

If we wouldn't happily drink it ourselves, we won't put our name on it.

More than coffee.

Every bag of coffee helps support programs for firefighters and their families affected by PTSD.

Everything else, the stories, the shirts, the mugs, the laughs and the conversations is built on the same idea.

Built from the Job.

Whether you've been in the job for thirty years, you've just started recruits, or you're here because someone reckons the coffee's worth a crack...Thanks for stopping by.

And try to be a bit more like your grandad.

Just not as racist.

Glen