With coffee culture growing in the Indonesia, Aston Utan of Common Grounds and St Ali shares his progression, plans and passion for the coffee industry.

Something special is brewing in Indonesia’s coffee industry.

Specialty café numbers are increasing, and appreciation of the beverage is growing. The country’s interest in coffee, which started as trickle, is slowly growing to a steady pour.

Co-owner of Common Grounds and St Ali cafés, Aston Utan has been with this rising trend from the start.

He and three friends started Pandava café back in 2011, when “specialty coffee was just starting to appear around the world.”

“We wanted to start learning more about coffee,” Aston says.

We’re meeting at his café Common Grounds, in CityWalk Sudirman, a comfortable space with homely décor and polished white walls. It’s steadily buzzing with customers, but seated across the marble table; Aston is relaxed in a black hoodie and jeans.

“At first [with Pandava], we weren’t really sure what specialty coffee was but it was something we wanted to explore,” he explains.

And he certainly has.

Since establishing Pandava café back in 2011, Aston has been active figure in the Jakarta coffee scene, behind the opening of two Common Ground stores and St Ali’s new Jakarta branch.

The Common Grounds empire is expanding further too, with plans to open a branch in Central Park, Jakarta and Surabaya this year.

“The coffee scene is definitely becoming really vibrant here (Indonesia),” says Aston.

“The market has matured very quickly with more and more local coffee shops popping up, especially in the last two years. People are more interested.”

But it hasn’t always been that way.

When Aston first started in the coffee industry with Pandava, he and his co-owners had to think carefully about how to attract customers.

“We started serving just coffee, increasing people’s awareness of the specialty roasts and drinks, but the coffee culture in Indonesia is very different to places like Australia, Europe, the US, where coffee is something you drink every day,” he explains.

“In Indonesia, there’s is more of a tea culture – we didn’t group with coffee as an everyday beverage, so it makes sense why, in order to make a café successful, you needed to provide a cultural identity or advantage. You need to offer not only coffee but food as well.”

That realisation was the turning point for Pandava, Aston says.

After two years of operating as a coffee only cafe, it came to the point where they decided it was either time to try something new – or give up.

“The exciting part was that the industry around the world was growing, with people discovering all these things about coffee,” says Aston, “so we realised yeah – we want to be in this business. Let’s start again with something new and fresh. Let’s start a different place and make all the corrections.”

It was from there that Common Grounds began.

Taking inspiration from Melbourne’s café scene, the café still focussed strongly on specialty coffee, but offered food as well.

“Three years ago, we were the only people doing eggs benedict,” Aston remembers fondly.

“We were starting to slowly get known. We made good coffee, had good food and sooner or later, people gathered around.”

The café continued to grow, establishing a strong customer base a reputation in the Jakarta coffee scene.

The next turning point came in 2014, when Common Grounds was invited to participate in the World Latte Art Competition at the Melbourne International Coffee Exhibition (MICE).

Aston is animated as he describes the experience.

“We were blown away. We had always heard about the awesome specialty coffee shops coming from Melbourne so we were so excited we had a chance to experience it,” he says.

And the experience wasn’t all the Common Grounds team gained.

Meeting coffee professionals and “coffee celebs”, as Aston called them, led to another business opportunity for the café.

“The coffee venue that stuck us most was St Ali. During that time in the specialty coffee world St Ali was one of the most recognised brands and names,” remembers Aston.

Not one to miss an opportunity, he leapt at the chance to meet the St Ali team.

Introduced to St Ali’s Ross Quail, Aston says they cut straight to the point.

“We knew that St Ali had done pop-ups before, so we asked- will you do a pop-up in Jakarta? If you’re up for it – why not.”

Meetings were arranged, and it “started from there,” Aston says.

The pop up opened in September 2014 at Common Grounds Citywalk, and was a massive success, even prompting St Ali owner Salvatore Maltesa to fly to Jakarta to see it.

“It was amazing,” Aston says grinning.

“The barista courses we were running totally sold out one month before the event. We were smashed.”

It was an eye-opening experience, and the amount of interest it generated was something Aston knew he had to harness.

“I didn’t know there was this whole community out there looking for this product and demanding this product, but the amount of attention was insane,” he says.

“It made me realise we needed to do St Ali.”

Fast-forward to 2016 when after careful collaboration between the two teams, St Ali opened its Jakarta store.

But, says Aston, no matter how big their business grows, the team is still a family.

“It’s not only a business. As we started out small, no matter how big we grow we still have that family feeling too us,” he says.

And, just like the coffee culture in Indonesia, Aston says this ‘family’ is growing.

“The more that [family environment] shows, the more it attracts those sorts of people,” he explains.

It’s not only the coffee he’s passionate about, though that’s obvious in the fond anecdotes he regales me with, but the people as well.

At the end of the day, Aston says what’s most important is giving back to the industry that has shaped his life so considerably.

“I just want to take care of the people who have taken care of me,” he says.

“The business has to grow, we have to shape to mould the workers. We have to take care of our family.”

And for a family bound by caffeine, crafting coffee is caring.

 Published in Globe Asia Magazine April 2017 Issue.