Our Story

 
Hello! We are Heather and Jim, owners of Mugging Whales Coffee! We are a micro roaster based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Our coffee is roasted in small batches once a week so it's fresh.

The idea for Mugging Whales Coffee began on our vacation to Maui, Hawaii in 2018. Coffee is a passion of ours, so we spent some time seeking out little coffee shops and fresh beans to enjoy while we took in the island life. In fact, much of our love for coffee comes from our travels. The experience of drinking a cup of coffee in the place where it was grown is something very special. We want to bring a little bit of this experience to you through the rich aromas and flavours of our coffee.

We source specialty coffees that are as unique as the countries they come from in the best growing climates known as The Bean Belt. We want to help more people become mindfully aware of the type of coffee they consume and where it comes from by telling the story of where our coffees were grown.

One of the most amazing experiences we've ever had was the whale watching tour we went on while we were in Maui. Within a few minutes of leaving the harbour, we stopped to watch a humpback whale mother and her calf. Off in the distance, about four miles away, we were also watching a few more whales breaching.

As our boat got closer to the breaching whales, they disappeared. We waited patiently for them to make another appearance. It was worth the wait... one whale surfaced right beside our boat, so close that we could see all the barnacles and almost reach out to touch it! A few minutes later, two whales surfaced in front of our boat and started to swim toward us!

There is a law that boats must stay 100 yards away from the whales for their protection. If the whales decide to come closer, however, the boat engine must be turned off and you’re stuck there until the whales move away. So we were stuck... for almost two hours!

This is what’s called a “Maui mugging” or a “whale mugging.”

To top it all off, when we were finally able to engage the engine again and head for shore, we were treated to a sighting of false killer whales swimming alongside the humpback whales! This was a very rare occurrence... so rare, in fact, that most of the naturalists on board had never even seen a false killer whale before. This was one of the most amazing experiences we've ever had and it became the inspiration for Mugging Whales Coffee.