Mas Adi - Starling

Mas Adi, there are many other friends from Madura Island who also sell coffee while cycling.

Selamat malam mas, how long have you been selling drinks like this?

Quite a long time I guess, ever since I arrived in Jakarta. Around 7 years.

Have you ever heard the term ‘starling’ before? It means ‘starbucks keliling’ (travelling starbucks)

I never heard it before, normally we just use ‘coffee specialist,’ but that’s a great term.

So why did you want to become a coffee specialist, mas?

Lots of my friends already sold coffee from a bike, and the profits were okay. There’s a community of hundreds of us in Jakarta, all of them from Madura.

Why did you make the community mas?

If there’s a problem, like a theft or collision with a vehicle, we can ask for help from the others in our community. We can also buy our stock from an agent in Tanah Abang, but there are members here, in Thamrin City and Karet too.

So do you have a permanent territory?

Yeah, we’re always on this road (jalan kebon sirih raya) because it’s always busy. There’s a lot of people going to the offices or to Monas during the day time, and at night there are many ojek drivers, bajaj drivers and security officers. Even if it rains we just chill at the bus stop, so there are customers who want a coffee while they wait for the rain to stop as well.

So how about the profits?

It’s not certain y’know, but they’re pretty good. When we’re busy we could get a gross income of 400.000 per day.

Since you’re all from madura do you go home together for the holidays?

Yeah, that’s right. There’s a chartered bus directly from Jakarta to Madura. The journey takes a day and a night.

Okay mas, terimakasih. Good luck.

Yup, you too.