WHC

A little about myself.

With so many aka’s and fka’s these days i go by the name of domtron, a name coined from the roasting apparatus used to test the colour or degree of roast after roast completion ”M-Basic series” and during “Agtron 3″.

The name was developed and it stuck whilst i work in Tokyo Japan, in the Paul Bassett Espresso stores, i was roasting coffee and training people and eating RAMEN LAWL! anyways, during my hours on the POS roaster we had there that surprisingly roasted up some great coffee i became very intuitive with predicting roast degree and agtron colour, hence the name dom-tron, although at times i have been in the mood to euro the name and give it a french twist, domtrone, maybe one day ill develop two alter egos, under both guises.

After the HSC, i went into the hospitality industry, i spent 3 and a half years at TAFE and did 3 courses, my final was a diploma in hospitality management. During this time i worked in many hotels and at the end of my diploma i had applied for a coveted cadetship with a hotel chain with over 400 applicants and 20 being selected for the roles i was over the moon to be a person who made it through the interview process and secure the role. The cadetship was great putting the “general manager in the making” in every section of the hotel to work, i made beds for a month, cleaned the damn hotel in un-godly hours for a month, worked in the bar, ran functions, did my best in the restaurant, booked people in over the phone and at check in, and even did maintenence for a month, id like to also take this time to toot the horn WOOT WOOT, as i managed the entire hotel as night-manager before any off the other cadets were even close to the pace that i had taken. And, life was beautiful, until i took my first course in coffee making, i was in the restaurant / cafe and i didnt know how to use the crazy behemoth on the bench “the espresso machine” so the manager said it would be a good idea for me to learn that too.

The problem with me learning to make coffee was that the guy who took my very brief and short intro into barista-ing was very good, and i can say that something happened, a spark was lit and it hasn’t stopped. I later went on to find out that the barista who took the intro course was a barista champion and throughout my career we have gone on to become great friends and adversaries at the comp level, he is Maico La Pena.

For the next while i practised to make milk, practised every chance i could, if a coffee needed to be made for anyone, in the hotel, i would put my hand up to make it, be it staff or customer i wanted to make it to try and do it better than the last time.

Some time past and Grind Espresso was developed by a hotel general manager by the name of Brett Wilson, who cleverly used a spare “hole in the wall” as the setting, and with the unquenchable skill and character of a barista named Richard Calabro. Grind has gone on to become a family name in coffee. For me though i saw Grind as an opportunity, i saw that Rich was keen on his coffees and i wanted to learn so i hung around a bit and when Rich and Greer went for a holiday i was lucky to be able to work at Grind for six weeks. During these days Grind was only open Saturdays and Sundays and i was still working in the hotel, but the time i spent workingat Grind was like another penny dropping, i wanted to take this coffee stuff seriously, gone was my plan to become the armani-suit wearing general manager, i wanted to become a BARISTA! So i quit! much to my parents disgust.

Finding a barista job during this time was really hard, it was the era when cafe owners were like have you got any experience and they would go, “sorry” or “that’s not good enough” it took me about six months to get a start, the guy who gave me the start was Con Vithoulkas, he was, and probably still is owner of VIVO, corner king and george streets sydney, funny thing is, he had Maico La Pena working for him at his last cafe, which he sold, andthat was city grind on bligh st. I spent two years at VIVO, andhad the time to play around with some coffee in my own time, i was very interested in doing my first competition during my time at VIVO andin hind-sight it seems by fate my friend Jason Bayley, who was on his own journey, who befriended Brad Conyers, another coffee lover who later went on to co-open the original BUZZ Bar in cronulla with Alan, anyways Brad who was friendly-friendly with Jason referred us onto his friend, a guy named Paul Bassett, and i guess you could say “thats all she wrote”.

VIVO was done and Nio needed staff, Jason Bayley asked me to come to his new cafe he bought, things were going well, but they were about to explode for him, we entered the Ozzy barista comp that year and we both did awesome. i took home 2nd place and jason scored fifth. I kept up my friendship with Paul Bassett after our training and on one hot summer day i was seduced by two beautiful women, LOL, Monica and Michelle poached me from Kafenio and that was that.

Nuns swimming in a pool, fair enough, it was so exciting to see a cafe / restaurant being built and to do yet another “day 1″ start for a cafe, “the girls” wanted great coffee for their new business “the nuns pool” and i was the man they selected, i was also excited andworried about having to train some young punk… Mario who IMHO has become an elite barista was that young punk, after about nine months “nuns” was singing and PB (Paul Bassett) was aproached by a Japanese company to open a store in Tokyo under his name, so we hastily trained up Mario’s bro Harry and hopped on a plane. Thank god that Harry picked up the barista game very quickly which is a credit to those Kapoulas genes.

2 years of landtime in japan which took up about three years of my life, with stints at Inni’s roastery and various sydney cafes were the call and since returning home to Sydney i have been working at Mecca once again, which has ben like barista boot camp all over again, the Mecca boys are so strict and any barista would benefit a stint at Mecca.

Acheivements:

DGCI Finalist Grand Barista championship 2003
2nd Place AASCA Australian Barista championship 2004
WINNER DGCI Australian Grand barista champion 2004
3rd Place  AASCA Australian Barista championship 2005
WINNER AASCA Australian Latte Art champion 2005
DGCI Finalist Grand Barista championship 2005
WINNER Japanese Latte Art champion 2006