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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Brewing up innovation and inspiration

by

9 days ago
20250701

Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

We’ve all been stuck in traf­fic at some point; some of us more of­ten than oth­ers. Dur­ing peak hours, when you’re run­ning low on sleep and the ed­i­ble kind of fu­el, time seems to crawl even slow­er. How­ev­er, one Arou­ca man is hop­ing to change that—by perk­ing up com­muters’ morn­ings and mak­ing their dai­ly crawl a lit­tle more brew-ti­ful.

It all start­ed in a car, as most traf­fic tales do. Some­one told Theon Morales they could do with a cup of cof­fee, and that idea brewed in­to some­thing more.

“In traf­fic, I could get a hot cup of cof­fee ... so why not? So, I start­ed to think about ways I could pos­si­bly serve cof­fee in traf­fic,” Morales told Guardian Me­dia.

He re­mem­bered see­ing a lit­tle boy sell­ing cof­fee on the road dur­ing a re­cent trip to Cara­cas, Venezuela.

Grind­ing through re­search and plan­ning, he fi­nal­ly found a Ger­man-based com­pa­ny that sold what he was look­ing for.

“So ba­si­cal­ly, it’s a com­pressed tank—the same ma­te­r­i­al they use to keep heat in a Stan­ley cup—so it can keep drinks hot for two to three hours. It al­so holds up to 100 cups,” Morales ex­plained. The tank sits in a spe­cial back­pack that al­so has a faucet to pour the cof­fee in­to dis­pos­able cof­fee cups.

Two months af­ter the big idea, the 38-year-old Morales stepped out of his car and on­to the as­phalt jun­gle at Trinci­ty Cen­tral Road near Trinci­ty Mall—ready to see what he could stir up with his busi­ness Brews on D Road.

“So, I make the cof­fee at home, put it in the tank, and then lock it in my back­pack, come out, put my busi­ness’ flag on, and start sell­ing,” he said.

He serves each cup with a smile and a mi­ni kit con­tain­ing sug­ar, cream­er, stir­rer, and lid—all in­clud­ed in the $20 fee. He says this makes it more san­i­tary and con­ve­nient for dri­vers who wouldn’t want to miss the traf­fic lights.

Those com­muters aren’t just sip­ping—they’re in­spired by Morales. Sev­er­al dri­vers stopped by not on­ly to pur­chase cof­fee but to com­mend Morales on his busi­ness and zeal.

“You see the sup­port I’ve been get­ting? I love my coun­try 100 per cent, and the peo­ple are very love­ly. I didn’t know Trinidad could give so much love. Es­pe­cial­ly when they see young peo­ple—and young men—do­ing some­thing in­no­v­a­tive, you know ... you can’t help but feel en­cour­aged by it your­self. I was in Fyz­abad, and a child said, ‘Mom­my, look, the cof­fee guy! I want to sell cof­fee too,’” Morales shared.

He was shocked, since it’s been on­ly about two weeks since he start­ed sell­ing, but he al­ready has big­ger plans.

“I al­ready start­ed to or­gan­ise oth­er back­packs, be­cause Car­ni­val is com­ing up, so that would be good. I’d al­so like to start bring­ing peo­ple on board. I don’t want peo­ple to work for me—I want them to work with me, in part­ner­ship, es­pe­cial­ly the youth. I be­lieve every­body could be en­tre­pre­neurs—young en­tre­pre­neurs,” Morales said.

He’s al­ready plan­ning to ser­vice more ar­eas across T&T. Cur­rent­ly, Morales sells in Trinci­ty from Mon­day to Fri­day, from 6 am to 8 am.


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