What to bring home from Margaret River (that isn't wine)

Chocolate, honey, olive oil, tea, soap, fudge and handmade ceramics. Margaret River and the towns around it make all of them, and none of it is wine. Chocolate from Gabriel Chocolate in Metricup or Temper Temper in Cowaramup. Honey from Foragers Honey near Nannup or Pemberton Honey Co. Olive oil from Olio Bello, Vasse Virgin or Eagle Bay Olives. Loose-leaf tea from Seven Seas Tea or Margaret River Tea Company. Soap from Moon Haven in Busselton. Fudge from the Margaret River Fudge Factory. And a mug or a bowl from River Ceramics, if you catch the shop between sell-outs.

Margaret River souvenirs, made here

Chocolate

Gabriel Chocolate sorts, roasts and grinds its own cacao at its factory in Metricup, and there's a cafe attached. At Temper Temper in Cowaramup, Roz and Georgia hand-temper their bars and coat Rosa Brook figs and roasted almonds in chocolate. Bahen & Co roasts on a 1930s roaster and stone-grinds on a melangeur from around 1910. It doesn't publish visiting details, so that one's an online order.

Honey

Foragers Honey keeps bees at permanent forest sites and packs raw jarrah and marri honey. The maker notes that jarrah flowers only every two to three years. Further south, Pemberton Honey Co packs single-flower honeys such as karri and wandoo on its farm just outside Pemberton, and runs a self-serve stall at the packing shed seven days a week.

Olive oil

Olio Bello is an olive farm in Margaret River that has been harvesting since 1998, with a tasting room to try the oils before you choose. Vasse Virgin started with olive oil soap in a family kitchen and now has a store in the Margaret River township. Eagle Bay Olives is a family grove planted in 1998. At Yallingup Siding, Petra Olive Oil presses whole lemons and limes together with the olives for its citrus oils.

Tea

Seven Seas Tea blends loose-leaf tea by hand in Cowaramup, where the blending room and the shop share an address. Its Australian Billy Tea mixes black tea with peppermint gum and lemon-scented gum leaves and a little smoky lapsang. Margaret River Tea Company names its teas after the map, from Injidup Earl Grey to Boranup Forest Green Sencha. It has no shopfront, so buy online or from one of the regional shops that stock it.

Soap

Moon Haven is a four-generation Busselton family business that makes soap by hand and now sells online only. Its Scent of Margaret River bar is lemon myrtle and eucalyptus, blended with Boranup Forest in mind, and the maker says it's the most popular in the range. Olio Bello's eucalyptus and lemon soap is polished by hand with the farm's own olive oil.

Fudge and nougat

The Margaret River Fudge Factory has made fudge by hand since 1999, and you can watch through a window onto the kitchen. In Cowaramup, Bettenays makes nougat on site. Watch it being made, then try a free sample before you choose.

Ceramics

River Ceramics is Jolene's one-person studio in Margaret River: wheel-thrown mugs, bowls and vases, some with designs scratched back through coloured slip. She won the Margaret River Art Prize in 2022. The online shop restocks two or three times a year, and the maker says most pieces sell within a couple of days. There's no shopfront, but she joins the Margaret River Region Open Studios in most years.

Things that taste (or smell) like here

• Jarrah Honey, Foragers Honey. The maker says jarrah grows only in the South West of Australia.
• Karri Honey, Pemberton Honey Co. Light, with a butterscotch flavour, from forest between Denmark and Pemberton.
• Boranup Forest Green Sencha, Margaret River Tea Company. A green tea the maker calls smooth and grassy, named for the karri forest at Boranup.
• Injidup Earl Grey, Margaret River Tea Company. Named after the beach on the Cape to Cape coast.
• Seagrass soap, Moon Haven. Lemon-scented eucalyptus, lemon myrtle and rosemary, to bring Geographe Bay to mind.
• Coated figs, Temper Temper. Dried Rosa Brook figs in milk or dark chocolate.
• Australian Billy Tea, Seven Seas Tea. Gum leaves and a thread of smoke, for anyone who misses a campfire down south.
• Magpie Series print, River Ceramics. Prints of Jolene's clay wall pieces of the magpies that live around her property.

Where to buy: in person or online

Opening hours change, so check each maker's site before you head out.

Every maker here sells from its own website too. We don't sell anything: each link goes straight to the maker.

Taking it home on a plane

On most domestic flights in Australia, honey, olive oil and jam can go in your cabin bag. International flights limit each liquid, aerosol or gel container to 100 mL or 100 g, and Tasmania has its own rules for honey. The details, with the government sources, are in Flying home with South West honey, oil and jam.

Bringing it home: questions

Buying for someone else? The South West gift guide sorts the same makers by who they suit.

Independent guide. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by any maker named here, none of them paid to be here, and we don't sell their products. Is this your business? Update, claim or remove this page.