Meet… Jose.
11 May Tuesday 2010
Meet Jose Vilandy- barista champion, trainer, equipment technician and the face of wholesale client support. This Jack of many trades lives and breathes Origin and has been with us since 2006 when the wafting scent of freshly roasted coffee first brought him through our doors (literally).
Jose first became interested in coffee when working as bartender at Paranga in Camps Bay and at Relish. He would often work the late shifts and used to drink espresso to get him through the long hours of the night. He also worked part-time at the Cape Town National Museum making steel stands, after getting his diploma from Cape Tech in civil engineering. It was there that his real coffee-break came when the curator of the museum recommended him to Joel Singer as someone with experience in coffee.
Jose recalls how he was walking in the Cape Quarter area trying to find the Origin building for his first interview, when he caught the aroma of freshly roasted coffee in the air. He followed his nose to Hudson Street and to his future as a barista extraordinaire.
But it was a very different set of circumstances that brought Jose to Cape Town some years before this happy event. Born in Lubanga, Angola, Jose was forced into the army and civil war at the age of 13. After 3 harrowing years fighting, he found himself in a refugee camp in Namibia. He spent two very uncertain and tough years there, constantly plagued by rumours of the government ‘coming to collect’. This threat led him to begin the long road from Namibia to Cape Town, a treacherous journey indeed for a refugee of war to make with no papers.
“I came to Cape Town looking for an education- it is what drove me.”
On arrival in Cape Town, a stranger on the street recommended that he go to The Arc in Somerset West, where he finished his high school education. Following that he attended Cape Tech and completed his diploma in civil engineering. Although he is now settled well in Cape Town, he still dreams of returning home.
“I look forward to seeing my lovely province again one day.”
At Origin Jose began as a barista watching Origin’s owners with interest as they made coffee and learning from them. He also worked as floor manager and then moved into customer service and training in the barista school. In 2008 Jose became South Africa’s national Barista champion and wowed judges with his “Espresso Tropicano” specialty drink. Although Jose could not exactly be described as ‘small’, he has a casual and smooth way of maneuvering around the espresso machine, as if popping out perfect flat whites with detailed latte art was as easy as breathing. And all the while he is chatting naturally, drawing you into the passion and pleasure he has in coffee. We look forward to the day when Jose will be able to compete again (holding thumbs for next year!).
“When the time comes for me to enter, I’ll be entering to win.”
Jose’s role in customer service is to offer technical support to our wholesale clients. He visits all who serve Origin coffee in the area regularly, checking that the standard and quality of Origin is being maintained across all contact points, and servicing their equipment. Origin is committed to coffee excellence and this means more than just ensuring the excellence of our beans in their origin and roasting (link to our coffees), but also that espressos are prepared correctly. This is why all our wholesale client’s baristas have been trained in our barista school.
So in the future we will hopefully see Jose competing again, fulfilling his dream of traveling back home to Angola and continuing to shape the world of specialty coffee in Cape Town.
“I always want to be in coffee, whether at Origin or elsewhere. Right now my goal is to put my heart and soul into seeing the company go forward.”
Jose and his partner Novolica have a six-year-old son, and in his spare time Jose expresses himself through his other passion-music. His band, Ngolaconsol, has just finished their latest album and is a melting pot of jazz, groove, drum beats, percussion instruments and piano. Like his many other talents, Jose’s music skills have all been self-taught. It would seem that in the harmony of these passions, Jose’s heart for people is expressed.