My journey with coffee (part 3)

30 Apr

Me waitering on an Italian cruise line, MSN Monterey

Hola my friends, today I will continue the story of Don Luciano Cafe and Gracias Coffee NZ

When I was a teenager I had decided to study accounting. I had a goal when I was young to make money and invest in a coffee plantation. My family had land but I needed money to start and then run the coffee operation.

In the end, when I completed my studies, I decided my best bet was to travel. Overseas there was the promise of much more money to be made far quicker than in Honduras.

I decided to go to Italy. So as a 21 year old I journeyed to Italy to try to begin to work on my dream. Italy was mind blowing for me as a young Latin American man. It was truly a different world. In Italy I got work in hospitality In the ItalianCruise Ship ( MSC Monterrey)

The food and beverage culture in Italy is like an artform. It was an amazing eye opener for me and what I had grown up with in Honduras. It was here the spark of what I do today was first struck. I fell head over heels in love with the Italian way of doing hospitality. It was ritualistic, it was an art, it was serious business done with love and care to provide the very best.

I was hooked, inspired and intrigued. My Maitre’d was 65 years old. The maitre d’ is the manager, the big boss. His name was Carlo Russo. To his staff, he was god. Or even to use another term, the Godfather. He said to me, “Marvin, you take care of me, I’ll take care of you.” He also warned me, words I grew to live by. He said, “Italians will wind you up, they will try to fight you, you have to learn to resist that.”

At the time I did not realise but looking back now I know it was a valuable lesson for me in business. Keep the end goal in your mind and never let anger or anything else cloud your long term aims.

In the mornings I had to be at work a half hour earlier than anyone else because I made coffee for Carlo. This was a prestigious task. Making coffee for the Godfather. I would make him good coffee and he would look after me. I was his man. Pietro was another person I met. A grumpy old Sicilian barista.

I used to say, “Good morning Pietro.
He would reply, “F&%k off.”

He would brighten up after he had had his coffee. He was a good man deep down and he liked me. He taught me everything I needed to know about how to use the coffee machines. The machines were completely new to me, a revelation. In Honduras we would make coffee in the traditional manner, with boiling water from a kettle poured over coffee grounds onto a cloth into a jug beneath. We would repeat the process with the same water several times to make a stronger brew.

In Italy, they had espresso machines. I had never seen such things. They were magical to me. Like leaping forward in time. I took to learning everything I could about them. It was an amazing time. In my six and half years in Italy I learned so much about food, coffee and service that it completely changed me as a person and remains a part of me to this very day.

I modified myself, I soaked all that information up, things I still remember and do every day at Don Luciano Cafe and also in the creation of my Gracias Coffee.

Leaving Italy, I returned to Honduras to invest the money I had saved in the plantation business I hoped to begin. My dream seemed to be on the way. To my great disappointment, the farm had been sold without my knowledge by family members. I was devastated. One of the great shocks of my life. So I had to change my plan. Modify myself again. I had to find another way forward.

I will tell you more about that next time. Thank you for reading, take care and see you soon at Don Luciano’s

Marvin