"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

It’s no secret to anyone who follows our stories and blogs that the people and culture of Bali hold a special place in our hearts. We first ventured up to Bali in 2007 and since then, we’ve taken many trips to build upon the direct trade relationship that we started with the farmers on that first visit.

Doing business in Bali requires patience and a willingness to hang in there for the long haul. Information is slowly released in little ebbs and waves, as trust builds. With each trip, the farmers allow us a little deeper into their lives, as they slowly lower their guard and share with us more of their valuable coffee knowledge.

Our last group trip, in June this year, was enriched even more when we embarked on some barista training in Ubud, which serves as our base while we are helping out during the annual harvest.

The baristas were enthusiastic and willing to learn, with a couple of ‘naturals’ standing out from the pack. Their ability to pick up advanced techniques easily and general hunger for knowledge impressed us all. We quickly hatched a plan to sponsor two of the most talented baristas to a week’s intensive training in Perth.

Komang and Gede really selected themselves, with their commitment and aptitude, and we began preparations to get them to Australia. It’s very rare for Balinese to travel outside Bali, let alone Indonesia. It was quite an effort to wade through the bureaucracy to arrange passports and visas, but after a few last minute hiccups the boys boarded the plane for the flight to Perth on 19 November.

We picked them up from the airport and it immediately became apparent that communicating was going to be challenging. Their English was limited — but certainly much better than my Indonesian! With a combination of a small amount of shared words, crazy charades and lots of referring to Google translate we managed to laugh, eat and generally share a great week together.

The boys had some great teachers in Jenny, Jeremy and Kimbo from Five Senses, and Michael at Hush Café in Fremantle. Michael did an amazing job nursing the boys through some work experience. It was an action packed week as we tried to show the boys the sights of Perth as well as cram in as much training as we could in the time we had.

It was a very sad moment when the week drew to a close and we took the boys to the airport for the flight home. I hope they learnt as much as we did!

Check out the photos to share in our experience. If you’re in Bali, the boys work for the Casa Luna group, which has several fantastic venues in Ubud. Look them up if you’re in Ubud and need a coffee, complete with a ‘jantung’ or ‘daun’ on top.