The Brazilian-Japanese and Argentinian Duo Behind Miami’s Bonsai Coffee Truck
Two young entrepreneurs, fueled by a passion for coffee, launched a tiny truck with big dreams—and a belief in each other to make something special.
This is a story about believing in one another more than it is about coffee, but coffee is where we begin.
Coffee is the starting point of many people’s day, including mine. Friends have told me that you should wait about 90 minutes before you drink your first coffee in order to let your body wake up. Use that time to go outside and absorb sunlight (Miami). They’re probably right in every recommendation they make, but I tend to just go straight for the coffee, because kids.
We kind of forget how hard it was, not that long ago, to get a cup of coffee—or how we couldn’t have a conversation with our barista.
The world felt like a place where we were all a little disconnected. But coffee shop culture is literally about connecting with others.1
It can be a point of connection in cities you visit—take Ben Dietz’s Breakfast Club, for example. Getting to know a new city can be as simple as meeting someone who offers on-the-spot recommendations, which I prefer over long lists of “must-sees” when traveling. It’s the old adage that to know where the cool shit in a city simply visit their record, skate, surf or coffee shop. People in coffee shops love to talk, so talk.
There is a shared energy that is had from talking or brainstorming over coffee.
Take Bonsai Coffee Trunk: it’s small business run by Brazilian-born Kenzo Tamae—of Japanese descent—and his Argentinian-born partner, Keila Souto, entrepreneurs in their mid-20s who wanted to break out working for the man and do their own thing.
Both had a shared experience and energy to build a new coffee concept for Miami.
Kenzo and Keila both have worked in the coffee industry for some time—doing just about everything in the industry, from being baristas to managers to operators. When they got together and found that shared love for coffee—more importantly, the shared love of turning people on to the taste of different coffees—they thought about how they could do it together. They thought about how they could turn this into something where they could take both their love for one another and for coffee, and let people feel that love as well.
I asked Kenzo about this:
I always wanted to own my own business, and my girlfriend did as well. We decided that it was the best timing possible because we had no other responsibilities. We wanted to do this for ourselves because we love coffee, we love people, we love being around everyone, and talking and teaching people about specialty coffee.
So when we quit our other jobs and said “Okay, well, either we go work for someone else or we open up our own thing and do what we love together and support each other, and here we are today.”
Often, the hardest part of starting a business is simply taking the first step. For Kenzo and Keila, that step was placing the equipment orders—an act that made the dream real and pushed them to commit. Soon after, they imported a 1998 Dentsu truck from Japan, which friends quickly and skillfully transformed into a fully functional coffee bar, complete with a roaster and compact barista setup.
But what matters most in Bonsai Coffee Truck story is the idea in believe in one another. Kenzo says the energy to actually start the business came from his girlfriend, Kehla. In short, she believed in him, and that belief gave him the confidence to believe in her and trust that they could explore something new together.
Get out there and get em.
Follow Bonsai Coffee Truck on Instagram. Nobody has webpages any more.
And for introverts too.