The quest to be among the best - Trained by World Champions

Coffee is an incredibly crowded industry, from new local coffee companies opening every day to the corporate giants buying entire coffee farms up like there's no tomorrow.

To be successful we firmly believe in doing things the right way. That means finding the right mentors, trainers, and people to elevate our skillsets. That means honing your craft to aim to be the best in that field. And it means creating an amazing product that people will love today, tomorrow, or ten years from now.

To do this we needed to find the best in the industry so we can learn from them, adapt, and create our own path. Here's a few highlights of our founding team's experience and how we got to the point of launching Virtuoso Coffee.

Aki (Gwen Nguyen)

Aki has lived in Japan for over 15 years and is semi-quadrilingual, speaking English, Vietnamese, Japanese, and a bit of Korean. She has a background in IT, semiconductors, and digital transformation having worked with companies like Gartner, Hitachi, and Tokyo Electron. 

Her coffee journey naturally began when she was young - living in Hanoi, Vietnam enjoying the potent Vietnamese robusta coffee on red stools in street side coffee shops daily. Only in 2023 did that journey go from hobby to professional, when she met Reino - the owner of Reino Coffee in Nerima, Tokyo. Life then started to revolve more and more around the morning ritual. She is now an executive member of the IWCA (International Women's Coffee Alliance), a UCC Academy Alumni, SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) accredited in Coffee Roasting, Green Beans Trading, and Sensorial Skills from HQJ; trained by Sam Choi, a World Coffee Roasting and Brewing Championship Judge, and studied at the renowned Espresso Academy in Florence, Italy, the birthplace of espresso.

Reino

Reino has been in the coffee industry for more than half his life, over 15 years coming up as a Barista at cafes around Tokyo to owning his own in the suburb of Nakamurabashi in Nerima, Tokyo (the home of Doraemon).

He was coached by Takayuki Ishitani during his career, who is 3x Japan Barista Champion, and 2x World Barista Champion Finalist - an immensely difficult feat that he achieved consecutively. Much of Reino's masterful barista skills, roasting techniques, and eye (and taste) for exceptional coffee comes from him and Reino's desire to serve his local community. 

Reino has an "old-school" method for producing his signature coffees. He crafts each batch, each coffee, with intuition. There's no laptops on the roaster. No fancy automated pour over machines. Everything is done by hand, paper, and dedication to the skill - the traits of a true artisan. Deemed "Coffee Shokunin" Reino has supported Virtuoso Coffee through consultation on product and blend development to sourcing some of the highest quality single origin coffees available.

Shabaz

Originally from New York (the birthplace of brown-water like substance), Shabaz has a background in media and entertainment having spent 10+ years in the creative industry, working on Hollywood films like Deadpool and Avatar. He has traveled to over 40 countries and essentially all of Asia Pacific.

Now in Tokyo for over 5 years, he has brought his eye for cutting edge creativity to the coffee industry. Yet not to be out done by his partners Aki and Reino, Shabaz sought out his own way of learning the craft from legends of industry. He discovered Bella Pham, 1x World Barista Champion Semi-Finalist, and both 1x Vietnam Barista Champion and 1x Vietnam Brewers Cup Champion was an educator at the same HQJ coffee school where Aki trained under Sam Choi - and spent countless hours training under her guidance. He is now SCA certified in Coffee Brewing and advanced Barista skills, with a focus on Specialty Coffee company ownership. 

He still enjoys New York style brown-water from time to time.