Barista Academy: Thales Pona

Thales first came to London from his native Brazil in 2010. He initially took a role as a kitchen porter at an Italian restaurant, but soon discovered the possibilities in coffee and pursued this as his future career.  

After six months, Thales moved from the kitchen to a barista positon, fine-tuning his craft on the job to be promoted to Head Barista within the year. Thales then embarked on a brief stint back in the kitchen, but this only reaffirmed his love of making specialty coffee. He then moved to a role at a large corporate, eagerly completing a number of training courses to learn the fundamentals of trickier skills such as calibration, maintaining a coffee machine and preparing different types of milk.

At the start of 2017, Thales joined the Compass family, becoming a key member and well-known barista at a prestigious London based client site.  

Thales said: “It’s great to see Compass share the same passion for coffee that I do. From the coffee plant to how the bean is roasted and the latte art, there is so much to get excited about. The Barista Academy is a great opportunity and will help me reach my goal of developing my skills and training other people to create exceptional coffee.”