Says Paul Bonna, barista extraordinaire, owner and proprietor of the exquisite Kaffeekommune in the Breidenbacherstarsse and friend (despite my having a good decade on his Mum) for close on a decade)
This is what he looked like back then
https://mainzdailyphoto.com/2013/06/09/paulkaffeekommune-zwei1908/
So 9 years on with a lovely wife , 2 youngsters, Henri (3) and Louis (10 weeks today) and his own high-end coffee roaster installed in a separate production facility in Gonsenheim, he’s well established, ageing very well and weathering the Covid-19 storm with aplomb.
And everything he spoke about achieving in the interview he did with another young friend, Isobel Ewing of CGTN back in September last year has become reality – reinventing the business, empowering his staff, looking at new ventures.
Like crowdfunding (and overshooting the €25k target by close to 20%) an initiative to buy the entire harvest from a single farmer (or maybe 2) in the Inza region of Columbia, cutting out the middlemen er persons and paying the farmer/s the price that their produce is worth.
Our coffee’s been takeaway from his serving hatch since October last year (and we’ve made the effort to get into town twice or 3 times a week during winter to keep him ticking over), but the sinking incidence rate in Mainz allowed him to open his (socially-distanced) terrace today and get things back to something close to normal.
Which just happens to coincide with the first block of decent weather in living memory…..
Mainz Daily Photo 