Over this spring break, I had the privilege of traveling to Lima, Peru. On the first day that our team was there, we were able to visit a local coffee shop called Velover. Over the course of our visit, we were able to learn the owner’s story and how their company came to be. One thing that I found very interesting was that whenever he started his shop in the mid 2010s, coffee was not popular in Peru at all. At the time, the people there mostly only knew about black coffee and not specialty drinks such as lattes, cold brew, and americanos. The owner talked about how he had to almost beg people to try the drinks he was making. One of the biggest lessons that I learned from this business visit was to persevere as you start something that you really believe in. Whenever the owner began selling his coffee, him and his friend bought a tricycle and turned it into a coffee cart. Not only did he learn how to make the drinks, but he also learned how to source and roast his own coffee beans. The owner’s commitment to excellence and quality really inspired me. Another important topic that he talked about was adaptation in business. An interesting dynamic that this coffee shop deals with is that they are located inside of a church. One thing that the owner talked about was that it is hard to price the coffee. They do not want it to be too high since not enough people can afford to buy it. At the same time they do not want to communicate that their coffee is not high quality by pricing it too low. Since they only operate on the weekends at church, they are also not receiving as much income as a normal coffee shop. Because of this, it is hard to pay employees. Instead of paying everyone, they have volunteers who work simply because they want to learn new skills. Although they are not paying them monetarily, they adapted and are still adding value to these volunteers.
Apart from the business visit, I learned a lot about the culture of Peru and how it is different from the culture of the United States. One big difference is timeliness. In Peru, the people will finish whatever they start before they go on to their next activity whereas in the states, people show up even if they have not finished a task. One other thing that I loved about their culture was the atmosphere of hospitality. Although we could not speak the same language, the people were so joyful and willing to serve us.
