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S2E1. Meet Chandra Melo, ex-barista, marketer at Era of We
75 Plays2 years ago
For Season 2 of the I’M NOT A BARISTA Podcast, we wanted to bring a new and vibrant tone. Come along with us as we interview some unique people in the coffee community in a fun and upbeat way.
In the first episode of season 2, we have Chandra Melo with us, she is a gorgeous coffee girl from Brazil, an ex-barista who is currently working as a marketer at a big international coffee company. Chandra believes that baristas can reach much more in their careers because herself is a great example.
Are you a barista feeling stuck in your career? listen to this episode and see what Chandra is sharing with you.
Follow Chandra on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/arroba.moon/
Era of We project
https://www.instagram.com/eraofwe/
Read more coffee stories on
https://notabarista.org/
Order Coffee Wristbands and support I'M NOT A BARISTA's charity work
https://notabarista.org/product/notabarista-coffee-wristbands-2023/
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Transcript
Introduction to Coffee Enthusiast Discussion
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to the I'm Not A Barista podcast. We're here to talk about all things coffee from industry careers, brewing tips, community support and more with some really incredible people who love coffee as much as you do. Because humanity runs on coffee and together we can empower all the people behind every cup.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello there. How's it going? No, I'm fine. I just had like eye infection those days. And my eye was like, is it still a bit if you can see? But I woke up with my eyes was like a ball and all my face, all my face was hurting and they start hurting here. I was like, yes, that was just infection, but still.
00:01:00
Speaker
I hope you'll recover very soon. All right. So let's talk about you. Tell us about yourself, how everything started.
Chandra's Background and TV Career
00:01:08
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, definitely. So like introducing myself, my name is Chandra Brazilian. I have my marketing degree in Brazil. I finished my graduation there. And then I started working in global is a TV channel company.
00:01:29
Speaker
So it was more or less when I started my career. I spent really nice four years in this company until I started. I had my first realization that I could speak English and the word was really, really big. And then I was like, well, I not even thought about a specific place to go, but then I decided to go to Mykonos.
Coffee Culture in Greece
00:01:57
Speaker
I got a job opportunity there. I started working in a hostel there. And it was more or less when I started being a bit crazy about coffee. In Greece, they have a super strong cultural related to coffee.
00:02:13
Speaker
They spend hours smoking and drinking coffee. It's almost like insane. And with a bunch of sugar, like it's wow. But I really like this way of living chill in front of the beach, enjoying the sun and drinking coffee.
00:02:35
Speaker
I'm, I don't like to smoke, but they were smoking and they, well, let good combination.
Portuguese Coffee Experience
00:02:41
Speaker
And then after this job, the summer finish, I moved to Portugal. I am also like a Portuguese, Portuguese citizen. And I was like, well, why not? So let me try. And that is a huge Brazilian community living here in Portugal. So then I decided to come and once again, the, this, the coffee community here, like.
00:03:04
Speaker
The coffee culture here, it's really, really strong. But I would say I'm not the biggest fan of Portuguese coffee. It's a bit too dark roast and too strong. I always say that tastes a bit dirty.
00:03:19
Speaker
But they have the same way of living, I would say, of the Greek people. So I started getting more into this world and getting more curious. And the first thing that fascinated me about coffee is that, wow, how a drink that is just like a fruit
00:03:41
Speaker
everyone can drink worldwide in really different ways.
Barista Journey During COVID
00:03:45
Speaker
And then for me, coffee is about connection, like nothing better than have a cup of coffee and meet thousands of people and talk for hours. So
00:03:56
Speaker
I started applying for jobs and I was a bit tired of the marketing career. I want to try something different and I really like the hospitality when I work in this hostel. And I started working in cafes, as waiter, restaurants, until I got a position as a barista in a coffee shop, especially coffee.
00:04:22
Speaker
work with nomad coffee and after a while they started working with drop coffee so both light roast coffees and really really good quality. Of course I started getting like in love and fascinated about this world. I made so many good friends all the customers that were coming to the to the coffee shop and but then you know like I was
00:04:48
Speaker
Part of me was really lucky because I started my barista career exactly when the COVID started.
Era of Wheat and Transparency in Coffee
00:04:56
Speaker
Lucky in a way that the cough shop became my family. So in a moment that everyone was firing people, they supported me so much. We didn't have job to do, you didn't have work, but they were still doing like trainings with me. I had the chance to,
00:05:17
Speaker
learn more like slowly without the pressure of having a bunch of customers and they kept my job. I was able to stay here in Portugal otherwise we need to come back to Brazil.
00:05:29
Speaker
And after the COVID rules started decreasing and the customers started coming back, I started being fascinated. And then I was already knowing how to do the coffees, how to do water lattes, and doing the brewing. So I was really lucky in this way. But then summer started, COVID rules kind of disappeared.
00:05:59
Speaker
I started working hard. I really enjoyed it. But I had a moment that I was like, okay, I love it, but I miss my marketing degree. I felt that I was already for too long time away from the market, and I was losing my skills. So it was more or less when
00:06:22
Speaker
November. Yeah, exactly. November, when the second wave of the COVID started reaching Portugal, I got in contact with the company that I work for nowadays, that the name is era of wheat. It's a coffee company, basically.
00:06:41
Speaker
They are a really nice project that they are trying to promote all the players in the coffee supply chain, so bring more transparency and build up a coffee community.
00:06:55
Speaker
So give the opportunity for states, really small states, promote themselves and the micro roasters and roasters get in contact with them through a really like tech and nice platform. But what it's also pretty fun is that in the beginning, I just got the job position because I was a barista and not because of the marketing degree. So they were
00:07:21
Speaker
They were interested in my barista knowledge, my coffee knowledge, and not so much in my marketing degree. The marketing degree was a plus, of course, like, okay, a coach knows what you are talking about, but they were more fascinated about my experience and me knowing about end users, what
00:07:41
Speaker
The customers are looking for what is a light roast? What's the dark roast? Also, when I go to talk with farmers and roasters, I know what to talk because it was me working with them, but like in the last part of the supply chain, let's put like this.
00:08:04
Speaker
What was really disturbing, I don't know if the right word, but disturbing in a good way. I was like, okay, I never thought that I would get such a nice job. And I could match my both words, like marketing my degree and what I like to do. And also my passion that it's the coffee.
00:08:26
Speaker
So nowadays I am already working for this company for more than one year and a half. And nowadays I am, I started being social media manager and nowadays I'm responsible for all the SEO strategy and all the copywriters that are working for us.
00:08:45
Speaker
and the social media managing the social media as well. So well, the coffee brought me so many nice opportunities in my career and also made me connect with so
Connecting Farmers and Roasters
00:09:00
Speaker
so many nice people. I had the opportunity to talk with so many nice people from different parts of the world because when I say that, oh, in Brazilian, they already think like, oh, okay, she know everything about the farms in Brazil. And not really my expertise with the consumers and the brewing coffee,
00:09:23
Speaker
And now I can talk with Uganda or Mexico or Colombia, talk about the farmers that are there. And this job gave me so far a lot of opportunities to talk with and understand better the supply chain so far. So basically, if I am allowed to say a bit about that, we are trying to bring more transparency to the coffee community.
00:09:52
Speaker
and build up this coffee community in a way that we embrace the farmers. So farmers that don't have a brand or don't have the voice in the market, they can promote themselves through our platform and connect with roasters that are looking for some origin and really quality coffee.
00:10:18
Speaker
So out of we can give the opportunity for those people connect and make business in a transparsing way.
00:10:27
Speaker
And for baristas also, it's a great opportunity to be part of this community. So writing about coffee and connecting with roasters and farmers as well. So I got really fascinated about the project, of course. And then I started putting all my efforts and my times on this. And yeah, and nowadays gave me also more understanding and visibility about the coffee and the coffee world.
00:10:56
Speaker
also like understanding the price of coffee that's something that I never really care never really understood and now we can see like so much difficult that the roasters face also in the industry
Marketing's Impact on Coffee Farmers
00:11:12
Speaker
I have to say that's a very impressive story that you just started as a barista and now you work on solving big issues like transparency and you help the company to build up this big platform connecting roasters and farmers and then give everybody an opportunity to be connected and then to work to get to know each other. So talking about transparency, what else we can share with us?
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah, I guess like a lot of everyone like talk so much about the direct trade, direct connection with the state. But what I miss a bit, it's people understanding how is the COVID journey and the
00:11:59
Speaker
who is behind your cup of coffee because people just play some really nice design materials like oh yeah the coffee come this is the origin this is the roast level this and the
00:12:15
Speaker
You don't really know the person that's behind this. Exactly. So yeah, I often see coffee roasters. Sorry to interrupt. I just want to bring this topic that many roasters, they are really good at marketing. They have good designers. And when you buy their coffee, you see they have a good website page promoting where their coffee beans from, how it was processed.
00:12:40
Speaker
some nice videos or pictures about the farmers and how hard they're working on the farm and how precious the coffee or how delicious the coffee are. I'm just wondering, how is this helping the coffee farmers? Because a customer willing to pay more money to the roasted coffee, so the roaster will pay more money to the traders, the trader will pay more money to the farmers. Or how do we understand this?
00:13:08
Speaker
And how this new platform you are building right now is going to help to improve the market transparency? Of course, it's already away. I'm not here to judge no one and it's already a nice progress. So the platform, first of all, they provide automated translation. And as I mentioned to you once, for me, it's the coffee social media. So everyone that's in the platform
00:13:37
Speaker
you can chat with the farmers, you can chat with the roasters, you can track all the coffee, so the soil, the UV, and you have the fully understanding of which kind of coffee are you looking for, you're buying or drinking, and you have the chance to talk with them.
00:13:59
Speaker
So for states, they have the chance to provide to to create their micro website. It's how we call it. And they fill in this website with all the information about the coffee. Of course, we have people to they they they follow a code of conduct. And they have people to
00:14:22
Speaker
be to check if all those information provided are right. But also the roasters can direct contact with them and create relationship and create business. And this relationship really happened. It's not just a picture with briefly story. It's real connection and real people.
Importance of Barista Experience
00:14:46
Speaker
So we really can understand who is behind us.
00:14:48
Speaker
So this idea or this plan for something like a coffee, social media, they bring people together and through this you build real human connections. That sounds awesome. And tell us about your favorite part of the job. I would say that's the story of them so far. It's really fascinating to me. Sometimes it's a bit, I would say, a bit like
00:15:15
Speaker
Ah, frustrating in a way that of course the people that's in the farm, they are not super tech. And sometimes we think take more time to
00:15:27
Speaker
you know, to happen. But at the same time, it's so like, it's, it's really fascinating. Like they text me and say like, Hey, like we need to postpone this because I'm the farmer. And we have a harvest to do. I was like, Oh, send me pictures. I would love to be there. So here, the story of the farmer so far, it's the, the highest part of my job, that I'm more happy about it.
00:15:55
Speaker
How wonderful is that? I believe many coffee people, they are so willing to work in the farm or at least experience the source of the coffee beans, house life like that, and communicate with the farmers directly. Yes, definitely. Of course, when I started working with coffee, I never thought about it, but yeah, it sounds like, oh, the term is coming true.
00:16:19
Speaker
I believe many baristas also share the same dream as you do. There must be so many baristas who also suffer from their current situation. Let's say they want to change their job, they want to have a promotion, they want to work more than just being a barista making coffee behind a bar.
00:16:37
Speaker
You're a barista, so you know how it's like to be a barista, right? And the salary, the long working hours, and a lot of frustration as a barista, and people don't consider barista as their proper job. Sometimes it can be hard as well. And most of the countries, they don't pay so well for a barista position. So I would say that at some point, I love to be there. I love to connect with people.
00:17:08
Speaker
In the end, it's so exhausting. As an expert, you have the coffee knowledge, you know how to work behind the bar, and now you have more knowledge working for a company as a marketer, and you have more knowledge about the whole coffee chain, and you get to know the farmers. My question to you is, what are the things that you wish to know when you are a barista?
00:17:37
Speaker
It's of course the hard question also because sometimes I don't believe, you know, like I took a time to believe like, I got it, I achieved it. So most of us, yeah, I was just lucky, but not really. Like I think that most of the times we look to ourselves, oh yeah, but instead we just understand about coughing, that's what I can do. And not really, that is so much more.
00:18:07
Speaker
Our knowledge in terms of coffee can and also in terms of people like but it's a stock with people and they talk with the customers every day. They know what the customers are looking for.
00:18:22
Speaker
they know the customer's needs. And in the end, it's what the companies need as well, I do believe.
Baristas in Marketing and Innovation
00:18:33
Speaker
Roasters companies and coffee brands, they are trying to innovate every day and how they can differentiate themselves to the other roasters or to the other coffee shops. So I do believe that baristas, when they
00:18:51
Speaker
can bring the value of their understanding about the customers, then users can bring so much value to a company. Also, you can share your knowledge in the sales pitch. You can share your knowledge to the commercial area, to the marketing area, creating Google advertisements. And all your experience can bring so much value to
00:19:20
Speaker
those tech people that are behind it. And of course, like if you like to write, I see so many operators in the coffee industry succeeding so well.
00:19:33
Speaker
And in the end, share knowledge is always a good way and also a good way for you as a barista to promote yourself. I don't have like exactly a tip, but I think like we as baristas, we should believe more in our skills and maybe sometimes think more out of the box.
00:19:54
Speaker
It seems that is a phenomenon that many barista believe their career path is mostly like you, you, you start as a barista, and then you learn about roasting and become a roaster. And maybe you open your own coffee shop, something like that. It's very, very common in the coffee world.
00:20:12
Speaker
And of course, there are many people trying to think outside of box and they use their other skills like coding or design to expand their career path, which is very, very good.
00:20:28
Speaker
And on the other side, there are many bursts with a lower education and being a burst is an easy way out for many. So especially when they speak only one language, which is not English, then they have a huge problem because the market is very, very small. So how baristas can figure out what they can do or their own potential?
00:20:51
Speaker
Definitely, definitely. Like, for example, I never thought about writing. I love to write, but I never thought about writing because I'm not a native speaker. So I never believed that I had this culpability. What's one thing that, okay, also like talking about that of we, but like, I don't want to be here like just promoting, but it's that you can find the articles in every language.
00:21:18
Speaker
So give the chance also like for people that's not so comfortable talking with. Just like reading you just want to like I want to chill I just want to read some articles I don't want to be reading all the time in English, you can find your language and you also have the chance to proofread the articles, so if you.
00:21:37
Speaker
feel comfortable in English and in your mother tongue, you can proofread the articles to your language. What's really cool, and for me, give me the chance to proofread a lot of articles to support this language. What's great so far. But yeah, I do believe that when you had the
00:21:59
Speaker
English as your mother tongue makes things easier in this industry in terms of like copywriting, especially, but it's not limited. You still can find your.
00:22:12
Speaker
your path, of course, it's maybe you can face more difficult. If you think about it, like also farmers, they don't have a fluent English and a lot of roasters as well. When I go to farmers and I can speak Portuguese, they feel so happy.
00:22:32
Speaker
Because it's like, hey, no, you can talk with me. It's fine. And they feel more home. They feel more safe also and more comfortable. And they, for sure, they'd speak the double of the amount that they would be speaking English. I believe that language can still be one of the biggest barriers in the industry. I took a time to trust in myself and believe that this could happen.
00:22:57
Speaker
And I still sometimes don't believe that I'm talking with so many like big farmers as like, I don't know, like I was like, wow, they are huge. Wait, what I'm doing? Yeah. Am I messing up something?
00:23:14
Speaker
So yeah, it's good. And I'm sure that those times that's the one-to-one relationship, the world is getting too tech sometimes.
Encouragement for Barista Skill Expansion
00:23:27
Speaker
The barista role, it's losing a little bit of value.
00:23:32
Speaker
don't really think that should. And I see so many buddies with this need to reinvent themselves. I think that is always a chance for them, especially in the industries and the big companies or roasters companies that they can work as providing customer support or helping in the strategy of the marketing and so on.
00:24:02
Speaker
So the takeaway here is believe in yourself, learn about coffee as much as you can and open your eyes because there are all open opportunities right there for you. So after working one and a half years there, what have you learned do you think is most important or is very necessary for young person to know? I think that for me mainly like
00:24:28
Speaker
I didn't, I knew, of course, I knew about the process of coffee, but not so much as I know nowadays. And I think this gap of information should be more transpersing also to the baristas, for example, you understanding the import part, also like copying service and understanding like prices of coffee.
00:24:53
Speaker
I didn't knew nothing about this. I didn't knew nothing about the price of the coffee can increase so much.
00:25:01
Speaker
It's the product that you are working every day. Sometimes I feel that knowing the price of this and knowing how the price is, of course, we always try to be sustainable as much as we can. But when you face and have a better understanding of all the process of how long this product took to arrive and to be here in this pack,
00:25:29
Speaker
and to be sold, you also can communicate this better to the customers. So for example, what I do believe is that we have a gap of knowledge from end users. This affects also how much the end users, the customers are willing to pay for coffee. If you can sell your coffee, you can pitch your coffee in a better way
00:25:55
Speaker
People will also be more willing to pay higher price for this product. So when you have a fully understanding of the price of the coffee, all the coffee journey, you can sell also better. So when companies invest in the barista knowledge,
00:26:12
Speaker
or like the baristas investing their knowledge for themselves. I think it's a key because baristas are the person that are talking directly with your customers, are convincing your customers about your project. So if they know fully about your product, about your coffee, they can convince anyone. So I think the knowledge, I would say that Erofri gave me a lot of knowledge about the coffee supply chain so far and the
00:26:42
Speaker
something that I didn't really know, it's logistic wise, import service, containers, bring coffee from Brazil to Europe by airplanes, by containers and so on, and try to find solutions for that. So this, I think something that's, yeah, so far gave me better understanding and better helped me a lot in my, in my job. And the, I think can help a lot of buddies as also.
00:27:08
Speaker
Agree. So Barista friends, coffee friends, pick up a book and learn as much as you can. And I agree that knowing the whole supply chain of the coffee industry will definitely help you as a Barista. And then once you know more about that, you can help your coffee shop. You can help other businesses and just don't forget how to make coffee, right? Do you miss the feeling of being a Barista? Yes. Yeah. The job that I have now, they
00:27:37
Speaker
like I work most of the time and it's hard also like to combine with the shifts of the barista but so like last week for instance I had the opportunity to do this event in the coffee shop to pop up the coffee shop and also we helped Ukraine so giving
00:28:03
Speaker
the profits to support the Ukraine government and I had the chance to work as barista and doing some lattes and cappuccinos and also like we also did some drinks so it was really really cool and I settled that one of my goals for this year it's starting being more involved because last year with all the
00:28:30
Speaker
comes and goes of rules was really complicated the the cough shops working and also I already had like so many workers looking for these I kind of like felt that okay yeah I have mine so give opportunity to people that it's not um that is not other job but I would like to be more like involved in the customer service um from time to time
00:28:58
Speaker
Thank you. Maybe some audience would like to meet you and try your coffee. So where can we find you? I'm located in Lisbon right now. I love Lisbon. Such a beautiful city. Yes, definitely. What is the coffee community like right there?
00:29:15
Speaker
The coffee scene here is not so big as, for example, if you compare with London, Berlin, but still there is a huge community of experts leaving Lisbon and people are pretty fan and crazy for a good cup of coffee.
00:29:33
Speaker
Thank you so much for being with us today and your tip for purposes. Learning more coffee knowledge, get to know the coffee industry is not only beneficial for yourself, for your own career path, but also benefit for everybody else who wants to learn more about coffee. Thank you. Thank you so much. And yeah, we hope to talk soon and congrats once again. Or I'm not a buddy. It's a really, really nice project.
00:30:01
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this I'm Not A Barista episode. Subscribe to this podcast and follow us on Instagram at I Am Not A Barista for more empowering vibes and true coffee stories that connect you with coffee lovers around the world.