A brand that started as a bar

Troubadour Coffee
Decades of experience in advertising kicked in, and over the last several months—all during the pandemic—Troubadour Coffee was born. The online shop ships and delivers single-origin coffee of the farm to coffee lovers in the US, Canada, and the EU. The shop also has a new entrant to the specialty coffee brewer market, the ’Tico Dripper’ a handmade eco-brewer based on traditional techniques in Costa Rica.

Oreamuno now splits his time between Costa Rica and New Hampshire, near his 7-year-old daughter. In addition to Troubadour Coffee, he runs an adventure-travel company called The Dreamcatchers. In an upcoming theme called “Coffee in Paradise,” guests will be invited to come to Costa Rica on an all-inclusive surprise journey through some of the country’s most beautiful natural secrets. He calls these trips “blind journeys” because guests are encouraged to travel without knowing all the details about the itinerary. Everything from the food to the activities and the accommodations is a surprise. “It’s an exercise in the art of letting go and allowing good things to just come to you.” The trip includes a visit to the coffee farm to learn about the art of coffee and excursions to volcanoes, hot springs, and secret waterfalls, culminating with a private celebration at the Troubadour cocktail bar—now on a mountain just outside of the capital of San Jose.

What struck me about Oreamuno’s story is all the pieces coming together for him over time. From our conversation, I deduced a few lessons for those who are both adventurous and entrepreneurial:

Scratch the itch. Whatever’s been your dream, you need to try it, even in a small way. Once you do, even a small version of it, the bubble pops. “Once you walk through fantasies or things that scare you,” says Oreamuno, “it opens up new vital information about the real you, the one you’re seeking for.”
Things don’t open unless you move forward. This isn’t just perseverance or resilience. Everything is a business move. “If I hadn’t taken the bar to Costa Rica,” notes Oreamuno, “I wouldn’t have discovered the coffee farm and the coffee business. What first appeared as a business mistake was a triumph in the making.”

Free your confidence. While you’re probably skilled in certain areas, what makes you uncomfortable may not be off-limits. “Your mind is booby-trapped,” says Oreamuno. “When I first got behind the bar, my mind was so scared of having made the move from executive to service that my brain would refuse to remember the cocktail recipes. It was only until my mind could see I was good at it that it allowed me to proceed. We all have to learn again.”
Market slowly. While he’s from the agency world, equipped with all the modern marketing know-how, Oreamuno doesn’t advertise and instead focuses on creating good authentic content and connecting to the early relationships with his customers and vendors. It’s organic-driven marketing. Just a few weeks after launching, Oscar-nominated actor Eric Roberts discovered Troubadour coffee and shared it with his thousands of followers on social media.
Brands need a real story. This is a time in which customers demand authenticity. “Truth, rawness, and vulnerability are highly in demand in this new world.” For Troubadour, this has become a brand adventure that he’s writing about in real-time with the participation of his customers and followers.

The lessons from Oreamuno are a cocktail of a personal journey, whose ingredients are a vision to see what’s possible, the mind to make it happen, the stomach to see it through and the heart to, as he says: “Do your life now.”