Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by an Espresso professional and coincidentally,
Speaker 1: today is also International Coffee Day. Okay, on with today's show.
Speaker 1: When you're sipping your coffee in the morning, what are
Speaker 1: you thinking about? Are you aware of the acidity or
Speaker 1: bitterness or how the aroma is making you feel? Are
Speaker 1: you waiting for the caffeine to kick in and help
Speaker 1: ease you into your day? And what about on your
Speaker 1: second cup or your fourth, or if you're Jean Marc Dregoli,
Speaker 1: maybe even your tenth cup. Jean Mark is an Espresso's
Speaker 1: general manager of the Oceania region and he loves his coffee.
Speaker 1: As well as being a coffee lover, Jean Mark speaks
Speaker 1: about five languages fluently and he's moved around the world
Speaker 1: for work several times in his career. So what are
Speaker 1: Geen Mark's secrets to learning a new language in just
Speaker 1: a few months and what if the best lessons he
Speaker 1: has learned in how to settle into a brand new
Speaker 1: country for work? And is coffee something that we can
Speaker 1: use to be more productive? My name is doctor Amantha Imba.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science
Speaker 1: consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work a show
Speaker 1: about how to help you do your best work. So
Speaker 1: let's head to Jean Marc to learn what actually makes
Speaker 1: a good cup of coffee.
Speaker 2: First of all, obviously the taste and the taste is
Speaker 2: very personal, so I think you need to find the
Speaker 2: right blend and the right I would say recipe that
Speaker 2: works for you. But for me, coffee goes well well
Speaker 2: beyond to the tastes. Obviously, it's connecting to what I
Speaker 2: do every day and to my business. So the impact
Speaker 2: we have on people, the way we do the business
Speaker 2: as clearly an impact on how I enjoyed my cup
Speaker 2: of coffee. I feel very happy when I know that,
Speaker 2: you know, in my espresso or in my longer cup.
Speaker 2: You know, we had a fantastic relationship maybe twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five thousand kilometer away from here, somewhere in Brazil and Colombia,
Speaker 2: sometimes with some of the farmers that I met personally
Speaker 2: as well. So I think it enables also some remote
Speaker 2: human connections.
Speaker 1: Now, talk me through your daily coffee routine, what you're
Speaker 1: drinking and when you're drinking.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of coffee every day. The first
Speaker 2: coffee is early in the morning, after we come back
Speaker 2: from walking the dogs with my wife, and generally that
Speaker 2: first cup of coffee is really the one that helps
Speaker 2: me waking up a little bit. Not not physically, but
Speaker 2: I think my brain starts really to function after that one.
Speaker 2: And it's generally a cup with milk. We like cappuccinos
Speaker 2: a lot, so we start the day with a cappuccino together.
Speaker 2: Then throughout the day I probably have between I would
Speaker 2: say seven to ten cups of coffee, sometimes short, sometime longer,
Speaker 2: sometimes with a drop of milk, but generally throughout the
Speaker 2: day it's black coffee, no sugar. Typically after lunch I
Speaker 2: would go with a short, intense express so and there
Speaker 2: are moments where I need that larger cup, maybe a
Speaker 2: little bit lighter in tastes, and those moments where I reflect,
Speaker 2: where I'm thinking about something, where I relax a bit.
Speaker 1: And seven to ten cups of coffee a day, how
Speaker 1: are you getting to sleep at night?
Speaker 2: You know? The last one is probably around ten in
Speaker 2: the evening. So I enjoy coffee, and I enjoy tea
Speaker 2: a lot as well, and I drink tea at night,
Speaker 2: but the coffee is really some saying that calms me.
Speaker 2: It's my relaxing moment. It's my me time. So I
Speaker 2: know that there is there is a certain amount of caffeines.
Speaker 2: But actually, if if you look at the details, and
Speaker 2: because caffeine is water soluble, so the extraction and the
Speaker 2: way you prepare your coffee will have a very important
Speaker 2: influence on the amount of caffeine you have in your cup.
Speaker 2: So caffeine is not connected to intensity. So the shorter
Speaker 2: the extraction, the less the coffee is in contact with water,
Speaker 2: the less caffeine in the cup. So you may have
Speaker 2: a bald, intense espresso with very little caffeine, and you
Speaker 2: may have a very long, watery cup of coffee with
Speaker 2: very little taste but a lot of caffeine. So choose
Speaker 2: the right coffee for the right moment, and you can
Speaker 2: probably adapt a little bit your intake of caffeine.
Speaker 1: I think that's really interesting because that's not necessarily intuitive.
Speaker 1: You would think that a more intense coffee flavor has
Speaker 1: more caffeine, but it doesn't. So like, how can we
Speaker 1: estimate how much caffeine is in a cup of coffee
Speaker 1: that we're drinking.
Speaker 2: Probably between fifty two hundred milligrams of caffeine in I
Speaker 2: would say a normal cup of coffee. Then if you
Speaker 2: go into very long cups, then I would say probably
Speaker 2: a bit more than that. And then there are some
Speaker 2: varieties of coffee. You know, you have Arabica, you have Robusta,
Speaker 2: and within those varieties you may have some varieties that
Speaker 2: have a little bit more caffeine than others. So I'll
Speaker 2: give you an example one of our coffee, which is
Speaker 2: a very intense coffee in tastes as well, but it's
Speaker 2: also a coffee that has a little bit more caffeine
Speaker 2: than the others, called Kazar. That coffee has around one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty milligrams of caffeine, and generally the robust
Speaker 2: which is the lower quality coffee, as generally a bit
Speaker 2: more cafeine than the Arabicas. So you have to look
Speaker 2: at all those parameters, you know, the origin of the coffee,
Speaker 2: the variety, and then the extraction, and then with that
Speaker 2: you can estimate the caffeine.
Speaker 1: Now, your final cup of coffee is very late at night,
Speaker 1: and I've heard that people are different in how they
Speaker 1: metabolize coffee, So can you tell me a bit about that, Like,
Speaker 1: how do people know whether it's okay to have a
Speaker 1: coffee at ten o'clock at night, or whether they should
Speaker 1: have their last coffee at ten o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, my wife cannot drink a cup of
Speaker 2: coffee after three four and she says that, you know,
Speaker 2: she feels that her body reacts and then she has
Speaker 2: difficulties to fall asleep. I can have one at ten
Speaker 2: in the evening and I sleep like a baby again.
Speaker 2: It goes. I think it's very personal, but I associate
Speaker 2: really the coffee moment to a relax moment for me.
Speaker 2: So when I'm at the office, the coffee moment is
Speaker 2: connecting with colleagues. I'll go to our kitchen and it's
Speaker 2: a great opportunity to engage with some staff who have
Speaker 2: a quick chat. So it's really a connecting moment. When
Speaker 2: I'm on my own, coffee is more the moment where
Speaker 2: I reflect, where I sink, where I pose myself in
Speaker 2: that last cup of coffee. I generally have it while
Speaker 2: reading or watching something just before going to bed, and
Speaker 2: it's a little bit my closing, closing of the day,
Speaker 2: and it's my relaxing, relaxing moment. So up to now
Speaker 2: I haven't seen any effect on my sleeping. Maybe this
Speaker 2: will evolve with time.
Speaker 1: And how about decaf coffee, because I'm a one caffeinated
Speaker 1: cup of coffee person a day, but then I would
Speaker 1: have a couple of decaf coffees as well. How do
Speaker 1: I know how much caffeine is in dcat coffee?
Speaker 2: That's a good question, and maybe before I answer, I'll
Speaker 2: ask you another question. Do you feel a different taste
Speaker 2: on that decaf coffee?
Speaker 1: I don't think I do. I don't think so. But
Speaker 1: I feel like my palette is not as sophisticated as yours,
Speaker 1: Like I can kind of tell what a good coffee tastes,
Speaker 1: like good and invented covers, and I am a Melburnie
Speaker 1: and so I should know, But I don't think I
Speaker 1: can tell the difference.
Speaker 2: I think I think probably no one can tell the difference.
Speaker 2: We did some test with some very sophisticated palettes like
Speaker 2: Michelin Star Chefs, and we did some trials and we
Speaker 2: make them test what we call an alter ego, you know,
Speaker 2: so it's one of our blends and then the same
Speaker 2: blends and the same taste profile but without caffeine, and
Speaker 2: they were not able to make to make the difference.
Speaker 2: So there are several ways to remove cafeine from the coffee.
Speaker 2: There is, I would say, a more industrial way to
Speaker 2: do it where you use chemical insolvents, and there is
Speaker 2: a very natural way of doing it, which is using water.
Speaker 2: In some countries they refer that to the Swiss water method.
Speaker 2: I think it's a it's a very natural process where
Speaker 2: basically the green coffee before the roasting, goes through a
Speaker 2: process where you wash that coffee with water at a
Speaker 2: certain temperature under a certain pressure, and that releases the
Speaker 2: cafe in. The caffeine goes into the water, and then
Speaker 2: you can evaporate that water and recover the cafeine separately,
Speaker 2: and your green coffee will be almost without cafine. It's
Speaker 2: not one hundred per cent without caffeine, but I think
Speaker 2: it's fair to say that it's probably a couple of
Speaker 2: milligrams of caffeine in that cup, So I would say
Speaker 2: two to five milligrams of caffeine versus a normal cup
Speaker 2: that is probably closer to one hundred milligrams of cafee.
Speaker 2: So you're close to ninety five percent caffeine free in
Speaker 2: the caffeine ated coffee. And the good thing of that
Speaker 2: is if caffeine has an effect on your metabolism. You
Speaker 2: can still enjoy the very good taste of coffee sometimes intensity,
Speaker 2: all the aromatic profile without having the caffeine, So caffeine
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with taste.
Speaker 1: Now I want to switch gears and talk about a
Speaker 1: typical working day for you, because one of the challenges
Speaker 1: of your role is that you are based in Australia
Speaker 1: in Sydney, but head office is over in Europe, and
Speaker 1: I Espresso is a global organization. There are probably demands
Speaker 1: on your time at all hours of the day and night.
Speaker 1: What does the typical day look like for you?
Speaker 2: Well, it's a long day and I think you really
Speaker 2: summarized it very very well. Being based out of Australia
Speaker 2: and working for a Swiss multinational, it's sometimes a bit
Speaker 2: of a challenge from a timing perspective, though our colleagues
Speaker 2: in Europe are quite conscious and they are trying to
Speaker 2: respect as much as possible the time difference. Sometimes it's
Speaker 2: inevitable my day starts generally, I would say, when we
Speaker 2: are not in lockdown, it would start at around six
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning. I would go out with my
Speaker 2: wife and we would walk for probably half an hour
Speaker 2: forty minutes with our dogs, which finally arrived to Australia
Speaker 2: after twenty two months journey from Brazil. But that's a
Speaker 2: different story. We're very happy to have our dogs with
Speaker 2: us and our routine is back to normal. So once
Speaker 2: the walk is finished, we start the day preparing, you know,
Speaker 2: breakfast and the food for the kids. It's really a
Speaker 2: kind of a family family time up to around that
Speaker 2: would say seven o'clock for me, seven fifteen and then
Speaker 2: I've got my first cup of coffee and that's where
Speaker 2: I kick off the day. I move from the family
Speaker 2: time to the business time in my brain and start
Speaker 2: thinking about the day, start planning my day, reading the emails,
Speaker 2: and obviously I have a little bit of time also
Speaker 2: for me during that morning beginning of the morning, sorry,
Speaker 2: where I do what I call the news screening, So
Speaker 2: I'll go through news in Australia, news in Europe. It's
Speaker 2: important for me to maintain a certain connection with Europe,
Speaker 2: with my I would say my home home country because
Speaker 2: well eighteen years ago, and when you have an expat life,
Speaker 2: those little things are helping you, you know, to maintain
Speaker 2: that connection with with your origin, with yourself. So this
Speaker 2: last from seven to I would say eight thirty maximum
Speaker 2: nine o'clock, and then at nine o'clock my day really
Speaker 2: starts with team meetings, a lot of conferencing throughout the
Speaker 2: day where we discuss our operation, we prepare the months,
Speaker 2: the next months, the activities, we discuss, people, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Throughout a long journey would be for me up to
Speaker 2: probably six seven in the evening. Then I would stop
Speaker 2: spend time with the family again. And then after the
Speaker 2: family time, I may have still one hour or two
Speaker 2: either conferencing with Europe or engaging with my colleagues or
Speaker 2: my boss and Zerland.
Speaker 1: How do you avoid burning out with such long hours?
Speaker 2: That's difficult. I've been used my whole life to work
Speaker 2: quite a lot, quite long hours. I think my experience
Speaker 2: in countries abroad, in Latin America, you know, the sense
Speaker 2: of working and time is very different from one country
Speaker 2: to another. I learned it here in Australia. The work
Speaker 2: life balance is really important and the long hours is
Speaker 2: not something that is that natural. When you work in
Speaker 2: Latin America as an example, and I worked many years
Speaker 2: in Mexico and in Brazil as well, the long hours
Speaker 2: sounds normal. Sometimes It's not as efficient as the shorter
Speaker 2: hour ear but it's something that you get used to.
Speaker 2: So I have a lot of breaks throughout the day,
Speaker 2: moments where I disconnect. Maybe I would go for a
Speaker 2: short walk, and you know those seven to ten coffee days,
Speaker 2: those are seven to ten times maybe five maybe ten
Speaker 2: minutes where I can disconnect a bit. So that's how
Speaker 2: I'm working. I'm trying to reduce that time. I'm getting
Speaker 2: better at it, trying to avoid working during the weekend.
Speaker 2: I'm getting better at it. And I used one of
Speaker 2: your advices in one of the conferences that you did,
Speaker 2: where you were saying, you know, try to plan those
Speaker 2: shorter meetings. I'm doing that, and now in my planning,
Speaker 2: a thirty minutes meeting is generally twenty five minutes meeting,
Speaker 2: so I have always five to ten minutes in between
Speaker 2: meetings to brace a little bit and to have a break.
Speaker 1: Excellent, good to hear you taking my advice. Now shut back.
Speaker 1: How many languages do you speak?
Speaker 2: Quite a few? Quite a few. So originally I'm I'm Italian,
Speaker 2: but was born in Switzerland. My parents immigrated from Italy
Speaker 2: after the Second World War, and I was born in
Speaker 2: Switzerland so I started to speak Italian at home, and
Speaker 2: I was speaking French outside of the home and that school.
Speaker 2: And then I was lucky to live in Switzerland, where
Speaker 2: the multi cultural aspect and plury language is something that
Speaker 2: is key. You know, in Switzerland we have four official languages,
Speaker 2: so you always juggle with at least another language. So
Speaker 2: I started to learn German at school. I studied it
Speaker 2: for many years, and then I went one year to
Speaker 2: live on the Swiss German part of the country. But
Speaker 2: nowadays German is the language I speak the least. So
Speaker 2: I would say I'm fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
Speaker 2: and I like to say that I'm fluent in English
Speaker 2: as well. Those sometimes my accent and my vocabulary may
Speaker 2: be a bit limited, and then I have a decent
Speaker 2: level of German. So I always say that I speak
Speaker 2: five and a half languages, including a little bit of Germany.
Speaker 1: Well that's four and a half more than me. That
Speaker 1: is amazing. What are some of the strategies that you
Speaker 1: have found to be most effective when trying to learn
Speaker 1: a new language.
Speaker 2: So when I was a kid, I was lucky to
Speaker 2: speak Italian and French, So I think my brain developed
Speaker 2: a little bit of agility. But I have to say
Speaker 2: that learning German and English when I was at school
Speaker 2: was very, very difficult for me, and I was I
Speaker 2: was a good student, but I was not a good
Speaker 2: language student. What really made a change is when we
Speaker 2: decided to have an international experience and we learned it
Speaker 2: the hard way. We were sent end of two thousand
Speaker 2: and three, my wife and myself to Mexico, and we
Speaker 2: did speak a word of Spanish, and we learn the
Speaker 2: hard way the importance of the language to really connect
Speaker 2: with the local context, with people, with the culture. The
Speaker 2: first six months have been extremely hard for us, but
Speaker 2: we were quite disciplined. So we add every day a
Speaker 2: Spanish class in the morning, and then we define the
Speaker 2: rule with the people that were close to us and
Speaker 2: with our colleagues, which we ask them to basically correct
Speaker 2: ourselves every single time we would make a mistake. And
Speaker 2: then with time your brain starts to adapt. Just you
Speaker 2: learned it. You learned it at the beginning the hard way,
Speaker 2: but then it becomes very natural. And because we've been
Speaker 2: living in so many countries, the first thing we do
Speaker 2: is really learning the language as best as we can,
Speaker 2: so you're able to communicate, to engage with people, to interact,
Speaker 2: and to discover the country with different eyes.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a very very interesting process. Are there
Speaker 1: any other tricks or tips that you have found that
Speaker 1: are really helpful when learning a new language.
Speaker 2: Yep, there are, at least for me, there are two things.
Speaker 2: One is listening to the radio when you commute and
Speaker 2: listening to the news to radio channel and really family
Speaker 2: familiarize you're here with the way people speak, the pronunciation.
Speaker 2: At the beginning, it's very hard, you don't understand anything,
Speaker 2: and with the times it becomes really natural. And the
Speaker 2: second tip for me when you are in the country,
Speaker 2: but also when you live left the country and you
Speaker 2: want to maintain your language level, this is really reading
Speaker 2: in other languages. So I force myself to read a
Speaker 2: couple of books per year in different languages. So I
Speaker 2: generally don't read much anymore in French because French is
Speaker 2: really natural for me, and I try to read at
Speaker 2: least one book in Italian, in Spanish, in Portuguese, in English.
Speaker 2: So it's really maintaining that brain gymnastic, that flexibility in
Speaker 2: your brain to be able to switch from one language
Speaker 2: to another. And this really comes with the time, with
Speaker 2: a lot of exercise. And you know, in my day
Speaker 2: generally I speak I speak at least two or three
Speaker 2: language in the same day, being with our head office,
Speaker 2: being at home, being with my kids. You know, my
Speaker 2: kids language, their mother tongue. I would say, it's not French,
Speaker 2: it's English because they were educated in English. But then
Speaker 2: we switch to French and then we may make a joke,
Speaker 2: you know, in Spanish or in Portuguese. So it's really
Speaker 2: it's really strange. If you would see at our table
Speaker 2: at home, you would say, those people are really weird.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's weird, but yet incredibly impressive. Now, if you
Speaker 1: wanted to learn a new language, but you weren't living
Speaker 1: in a city or a country that spoke that language, Like,
Speaker 1: let's just say I set you the challenge of learning
Speaker 1: how to speak Japanese over the next six months, but
Speaker 1: you have to stay in Sydney. What would you do?
Speaker 2: Wow? Wow? Wow wow. So I think the starting point
Speaker 2: and what has been really helpful for us is having this,
Speaker 2: you know, professional support at the beginning. So I think
Speaker 2: you need to start with a teacher just to get
Speaker 2: to get the base, to get the basics, to try
Speaker 2: to understand how things works in that language, a little
Speaker 2: bit of vocabulary, but also a little bit of grammar,
Speaker 2: which is a bit boring, but it's very very important.
Speaker 2: So I would definitely start with finding a Japanese teacher
Speaker 2: or a Japanese person in Sydney to help me at
Speaker 2: the beginning, and then I think that's where the listening,
Speaker 2: the watching, the immersion in that world becomes becomes essential.
Speaker 2: If you could find a passion or an interest that
Speaker 2: would connect you to that language, I think it would
Speaker 2: help a lot. So typically I am in love with food,
Speaker 2: with gastronomy, with cooking, with cooking shows, etc. So if
Speaker 2: you like sushi, if you like Japanese gastronomy, then I
Speaker 2: think this will help you to connect with the Japanese language.
Speaker 2: So you could start maybe watching some shows in Japanese
Speaker 2: and you put the subtitle in the language that you like,
Speaker 2: so you family you start familiarizing you're here with the language,
Speaker 2: but you can still read under the translation, and once
Speaker 2: your level increases a bit, then you put the subtitle
Speaker 2: in the same language that you're listening to, So Japanese
Speaker 2: language Japanese subtitle. But I have to say that it's
Speaker 2: probably a very difficult exercise to do if you're not
Speaker 2: in the country. And the other thing is probably it
Speaker 2: would be very difficult for me as well, because Japanese
Speaker 2: is not a Latin route. So you know, French, Italian, Spanish,
Speaker 2: and Portuguese they share something in common, which is their origins.
Speaker 2: So it's probably much easier to learn Spanish, Portuguese and
Speaker 2: Italian with time, then switching from Italian to Japanese.
Speaker 1: Now, tell me about the career advice that you receive
Speaker 1: before leaving Switzerland for the first time.
Speaker 2: I'll put you back in context. It was two thousand
Speaker 2: and three. It was my first assignment abroad, leaving the family,
Speaker 2: just freshly married, and the senior executive at that time
Speaker 2: that was in charge of the geographical region was going
Speaker 2: to so it was one of the general manager of
Speaker 2: Nesley at global level. His name is Carlos Reprezas, a
Speaker 2: Mexican gentleman international career and he told me Mark, you
Speaker 2: are going to my home country Mexico, and I'm living
Speaker 2: in your home country, Switzerland, so we're switching country. I've
Speaker 2: been traveling around the world, working in many countries, and
Speaker 2: I'd like to share one thing with you, and that
Speaker 2: can help you, and that advice was basically, when you
Speaker 2: go into my home country, you will find a lot
Speaker 2: of differences with Switzerland. Try to focus on the good
Speaker 2: things you will find in Mexico and try to forget
Speaker 2: or put on side everything that you like and loved
Speaker 2: in your home country and try to really enjoy that
Speaker 2: country at its best, because if you start focusing your
Speaker 2: mind on all the good thing that you will be missing,
Speaker 2: your experience will be very difficult at the beginning in Mexico,
Speaker 2: and that advice has been really good for us because
Speaker 2: moving from i would say, a first world country like
Speaker 2: Switzerland to maybe a developing country like Mexico, it's a
Speaker 2: it's a big challenge, but we loved it, and we
Speaker 2: really took that advice one hundred percent and we started
Speaker 2: to enjoy what Mexico has to offer, the best of Mexico,
Speaker 2: which is the culture, which is the food, which is
Speaker 2: the language, which is the travel, which is the diversity.
Speaker 2: And since then, that's the advice that we as a
Speaker 2: family use each time we move and we really try
Speaker 2: to take the best of the country we're going to
Speaker 2: and leave a little bit behind us the best thing
Speaker 2: of the previous country.
Speaker 1: I love that advice. And you have worked all over
Speaker 1: the world. What is like. Tell me more about your
Speaker 1: approach to starting a new position in a brand new
Speaker 1: country and workplace.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mentioned to you maybe earlier. You know,
Speaker 2: you're getting out of your comfort zone, and I learned
Speaker 2: to enjoy that quite a lot. So the first thing
Speaker 2: I would I would do when I arrived in a
Speaker 2: new country is try to read a little bit about,
Speaker 2: you know, the culture of the country, the history of
Speaker 2: the country, the geography of the country, the people. I
Speaker 2: would do probably an immersion on the first first week,
Speaker 2: you know, experiencing the food of the country, trying to
Speaker 2: travel a little bit to see the diversity, trying to
Speaker 2: I'm putting myself, you know, quickly in what's what's the context,
Speaker 2: and what's the mood there. Then the first the first
Speaker 2: two weeks, first months of starting the new work in
Speaker 2: the country, there's a lot of listening, listening to people,
Speaker 2: you know, listening how the business works, understanding who they are,
Speaker 2: a lot of one to one with the people, to
Speaker 2: understand the context, what is really different to what I
Speaker 2: was used to. I think you get a lot of
Speaker 2: insight with observation.
Speaker 1: What have you learned about Australia and Australians through observation.
Speaker 2: So I learned that, first of all, the coffee is
Speaker 2: something that is extremely important in Australia. Before coming to Australia,
Speaker 2: would never have said that. You know, there's such a
Speaker 2: strong coffee culture in the country. And I dare to
Speaker 2: say more than coffee culture, I think there's a cafe culture.
Speaker 2: And what shocks me a bit sometimes is to see
Speaker 2: people walking in the morning from their home, walking and
Speaker 2: going to their neighborhood cafe and then walking back with
Speaker 2: their cup of coffee to their home. This is something
Speaker 2: that is not that natural for me. We are we're
Speaker 2: getting used to it, obviously, but that's something that is
Speaker 2: very that is very different. And then I would say
Speaker 2: in that coffee culture, the high quality of the coffee
Speaker 2: beverages in in in Australia, the taste profiles that are
Speaker 2: a bit a bit different that what I'm used to.
Speaker 2: The amount of milk in the cup is really key. Also,
Speaker 2: you know, you you can find some of the best
Speaker 2: coffees in the world here in this in this country,
Speaker 2: which sometimes in other country it's it's it's difficult. And
Speaker 2: at the same time people are still drinking soluble coffee
Speaker 2: at home as well, So you you got a little
Speaker 2: bit the post world, you know, and.
Speaker 1: What about the work culture here? So what like what
Speaker 1: have you noticed that is unique about the Australian way
Speaker 1: of work compared to other countries you've worked within.
Speaker 2: Probably there is a relation to hierarchy that is very
Speaker 2: different to some of the countries I worked in. So
Speaker 2: definitely in Australia you can be very close to people
Speaker 2: and you can have very direct, unfiltered conversation with anyone
Speaker 2: and that's absolutely normal, which in other countries it may
Speaker 2: be it may be more difficult even if you as
Speaker 2: a leader of a major organization you want to do it.
Speaker 2: There is always a little bit of distance between between
Speaker 2: people in hierarchy. So I really I really enjoyed that
Speaker 2: aspect of Australia. Then I think the work life balance
Speaker 2: and making sure that you know you are as efficient
Speaker 2: as par gossiple throughout the day because work is only
Speaker 2: one part of your life and there is another part
Speaker 2: of your life. And finding that balance I think it's
Speaker 2: it's really great, and it's it's going a little bit
Speaker 2: out of my comfort zone, but I'm trying to learn faster.
Speaker 2: So there's some very very interesting, interesting aspect with the
Speaker 2: working culture here.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating now for people that want to learn more
Speaker 1: about espresso, whether that is consuming it within their home
Speaker 1: or at their office, and particularly for those when lockdown,
Speaker 1: when they get back to their office. What's the best
Speaker 1: way for people to do that?
Speaker 2: Oh, I think I think you need to maybe understand
Speaker 2: a little bit of our history. You know, it's it's
Speaker 2: an innovation and pioneering really history. We created something that
Speaker 2: didn't exist, and we created because we wanted to be
Speaker 2: able to give the barista coffee experience at home in
Speaker 2: a very simple way, so that you could enjoy a
Speaker 2: very consistent cup of coffee at home without having to
Speaker 2: invest in major equipment and without having to really master
Speaker 2: all the variable of the coffee extraction. That's the origin
Speaker 2: a lot of innovation, a very sustainable business as well,
Speaker 2: because since day one, we've been sourcing extremely high coffee quality,
Speaker 2: and we realize that if you want to have that
Speaker 2: supply of very high quality coffee, you need to put
Speaker 2: in place a system where you are very close to
Speaker 2: the producers, and you need to make sure that you
Speaker 2: work hand in hand with the producer so that they
Speaker 2: have a good living, so that you continue to have
Speaker 2: a good business as well. And then the third aspect
Speaker 2: is we are a direct consumer business, so we like
Speaker 2: that interaction with our consumer. We don't sell our product
Speaker 2: in supermarket. There's a good reason for that because this
Speaker 2: is we believe the direct to consumer allows us freely
Speaker 2: to understand what the consumer wants and to advise them
Speaker 2: and offer them the best experience. So I would say,
Speaker 2: if you want to leave an espresso experience, just go
Speaker 2: into one of our store when possible, and you know,
Speaker 2: just enter and ask one of our coffee specialists. You know,
Speaker 2: seventy percent of our staff are consumer facing, and you
Speaker 2: just ask them to guide you through what an espresso
Speaker 2: can offer, and with very few questions, we can identify
Speaker 2: your needs, what you like, the way you like to
Speaker 2: drink coffee, and then we can guide you in the
Speaker 2: world of an espresso and discovering what I call and
Speaker 2: what we call the perfect of coffee.
Speaker 1: Amazing. That sounds great, well, Jean Mark, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for your time. I've thoroughly enjoyed learning more about
Speaker 1: coffee and languages and all sorts of things.
Speaker 2: So thank you, thank you, Thank you very much. Amanta
Speaker 2: was lovely to talk to you today. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed my chat with Jean Mark and
Speaker 1: maybe you're feeling inspired to start learning a new language. Perhaps.
Speaker 1: How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support
Speaker 1: from Dead Set Studios. The producer for this episode was
Speaker 1: Jenna Koda, and thank you to Martin Nimba who does
Speaker 1: the audio mix and makes everything sound better than it
Speaker 1: would have otherwise. See you next time.