Windu Alifart

The Coffee Was Never Just About Winning From a small village in Indonesia to the international coffee community in the UAE, Windu Alifart’s journey is about mistakes, second chances, and discovering that some of life’s most meaningful victories belong to the people around us.

In 2017, a new café opened near Windu’s home in a small village in Indonesia. He knew the owner and decided to visit, partly to support a neighbor’s new business. But when he looked at the menu, something caught his attention. A latte cost around $1.50, which seemed ridiculously expensive compared with the instant coffee he was used to drinking. He couldn’t understand why anyone in his hometown would pay that much for a cup of coffee. Looking around the café, he quietly made a prediction:

“Man, this guy won’t survive.”

He couldn’t have been more wrong about what that little café would eventually mean to him. Windu kept returning, initially because it was a comfortable place to meet friends. A few months later, he tried a filter coffee that surprised him. It was naturally sweet, with a crisp acidity that reminded him of apples. Until then, he had associated coffee with bitterness, something that needed sugar to become enjoyable. This cup was completely different. He couldn’t understand how coffee could produce those flavors without anything being added. It was a simple experience, but one he still remembers years later. That curiosity gradually turned into a habit of drinking filter coffee, learning about brewing, and paying attention to the details he had previously overlooked.

Today, Windu works at Archers Coffee in the United Arab Emirates, where he is involved in customer relations, quality control, events, and many other aspects of the business. He has competed in national coffee championships and helped other competitors prepare for the stage. But when we spoke with him, the most interesting parts of his story weren’t the competitions or the achievements. They were the mistakes he was willing to admit, the people who had challenged him, and the way his understanding of success had changed.

Growing Up Means Learning to Listen

In August 2019, Windu moved to the UAE. He was just 19 years old, full of ambition, and excited about the opportunities he saw in the country’s growing specialty coffee industry. Like many young baristas moving abroad, he wanted to learn, earn a living, and prove that he could build a future for himself. He worked at different cafés, gained experience, and gradually became more familiar with the local coffee community. But those early years weren’t always easy, and Windu doesn’t pretend otherwise.

Looking back, he admits that he made mistakes, particularly in the way he dealt with people. He was young, stubborn, and sometimes too confident in his own opinions. He argued with managers and colleagues who had more experience than he did, often believing that defending his position meant he was doing the right thing. Only later did he realize that being passionate about something doesn’t automatically mean you’re right, and that having an opinion is different from being willing to understand someone else’s.

“Sometimes in life I think you need to listen to those who actually had an experience already,” he told us.

It’s a surprisingly simple lesson, but one that can take years to understand. In an industry where technical knowledge is highly valued, it’s easy to focus on becoming a better brewer, learning new recipes, or understanding coffee more deeply. Yet working with people requires a different set of skills. You need patience, humility, and the ability to accept criticism without treating it as a personal attack. Windu gradually began recognizing those qualities in the people he respected, and he started questioning his own behavior.

He doesn’t speak about those experiences with bitterness. Some of the people he once disagreed with are now his friends. Instead of blaming them for difficult moments, he sees those years as an important part of growing up. He learned to become more disciplined, to listen before reacting, and to recognize that the people around him could help him become better if he was willing to let them.

By 2023, Windu was ready for another change. After leaving his previous job, he began thinking seriously about where he wanted his coffee career to go. He knew people at Archers Coffee and admired the work the company was doing, so he reached out to ask whether there might be an opportunity to join. A conversation with one of the team members turned into an informal interview, and before long, Windu was offered a position.

He has been with Archers ever since. When people ask what he does there, Windu usually gives a wonderfully casual answer: he drinks coffee, organizes events, talks with people, and does everything in between. Behind that description is a role that keeps him connected to both coffee quality and the people who experience it. He works alongside colleagues who care deeply about what they do and who constantly challenge one another to improve. For someone who once struggled to accept advice, being part of a team where feedback and shared learning are essential has become particularly meaningful. Windu still has strong opinions about coffee, and he still wants to improve. The difference is that he has learned he doesn’t need to figure everything out alone.

When Winning Becomes the Only Thing That Matters

Like many passionate coffee professionals, Windu eventually found his way into competitions. His first major experience came at the 2022 Indonesia Brewers Cup, where he finished tenth. He had been preparing largely on his own, learning through practice and experimentation, and the experience introduced him to a different side of specialty coffee. Competing demanded more than making a delicious cup. It required consistency, technical understanding, presentation skills, and the ability to perform under pressure.

He enjoyed the challenge and wanted to keep improving. But competitions also introduced him to something less enjoyable: the pressure he placed on himself. In 2024, while representing Archers at a Brewers Cup competition, Windu hoped to reach the final round. He had invested considerable time and effort in preparing, and he wanted to deliver a result that would make his team proud. When he didn’t make the final, he was deeply disappointed. He felt as though he had let people down, even though his colleagues hadn’t placed those expectations on him.

Looking back, Windu realized that much of the pressure had come from his own thinking. He had become so focused on the result that he struggled to appreciate the experience itself. Months of preparation, countless conversations, recipe adjustments, and valuable lessons suddenly seemed insignificant because he hadn’t achieved the ranking he wanted.

It’s a feeling many competitors will recognize. You spend weeks or months preparing for a few minutes onstage, carefully measuring every variable and imagining what it would feel like to hear your name announced. When things don’t go as planned, disappointment can make it difficult to remember why you started competing in the first place.

For Windu, the important question eventually became whether a competition was only worth participating in if he won. The people around him helped him reconsider that idea. His teammates continued supporting him, and he began paying more attention to everything that happened during preparation rather than treating the final ranking as the only meaningful outcome. He still wanted to win, of course. He wasn’t going to pretend that results didn’t matter. But he started to understand that a result could be important without defining the entire experience.

When he prepared for the 2026 UAE National Brewers Championship, he approached things differently. Instead of focusing entirely on the possibility of winning, he tried to concentrate on the process: understanding his coffee, improving his performance, working with his team, and enjoying the opportunity to compete. This time, he finished third.

It was an achievement he was proud of, but what stood out during our conversation was how he described the experience. He wasn’t simply celebrating the ranking. He was reflecting on how much better he felt throughout the preparation and how much he had learned by changing his expectations.

“When I shift my mind from result to process, it felt relief,” he explained.

He had worked hard, prepared seriously, and given the competition his best effort. That mattered to him regardless of where he finished.

The People Who Make Us Better

One thing Windu returned to repeatedly during our conversation was the importance of surrounding yourself with good people. He talked about friends, colleagues, and competitors who had helped him improve, sometimes by offering encouragement and sometimes by telling him things he didn’t necessarily want to hear.

He remembers preparing for competitions alongside people who would eventually become his opponents. In 2024, he practiced with another competitor from a different coffee business. They spent time together in the warehouse, experimenting with recipes, tasting coffee, and challenging each other’s ideas. When the competition arrived, they would stand onstage representing different teams. But during preparation, they were helping each other become better. That experience shaped the way Windu thinks about competition.

In an industry where competitors sometimes keep their recipes, techniques, and coffee selections secret, the idea of helping someone you might compete against can seem unusual. But Windu discovered that learning together doesn’t necessarily make competition less meaningful. It can make everyone better prepared, and it creates relationships that last longer than the competition itself.

He is careful about calling himself a coach. When he helps someone prepare, he prefers to describe his role as assisting or supporting them. He understands how much work goes into competing and knows that the person standing onstage deserves recognition for their own preparation. His contribution might involve tasting coffees, discussing ideas, helping with practice, or simply being there when someone needs another perspective.

It’s a different kind of satisfaction from performing well yourself. For Windu, the coffee community has become much more than a professional network. These are the people who welcomed him when he was young, helped him find opportunities, challenged his behavior, and encouraged him when things didn’t go as planned. Some became close friends. Others taught him lessons through disagreements or difficult experiences. Together, they helped shape the person he is today. And that change extends beyond coffee. During our interview, Windu spoke about learning to take better care of himself, spending time with friends, and developing interests outside work. He enjoys meeting people from different backgrounds and discovering new experiences. Coffee remains a major part of his life, but he is beginning to understand that being successful professionally isn’t the same as building a fulfilling life.

For someone who moved abroad at 19 with so much to learn, that realization has taken time.

What Coffee Has Given Him

When we asked Windu what coffee had brought into his life, he didn’t immediately talk about competitions or professional achievements. Instead, he thought about the people he had met and the opportunities that had come from those relationships.

“Coffee brought me to a better place,” he told us.

It’s an interesting statement because it can mean several things. Coffee quite literally brought him from Indonesia to the UAE, where he built a career and found a community. But it also helped him become a different person. Through coffee, he learned to accept criticism, recognize his mistakes, work with others, and appreciate experiences that didn’t end with the result he wanted.

He admitted that he owed a great deal to the community. That doesn’t mean his journey has been perfect or that he has suddenly figured everything out. He still wants to improve, compete, and explore new opportunities. He still has ambitions and moments of uncertainty. But he seems more comfortable acknowledging that progress doesn’t always happen in a straight line.

Sometimes you learn because you win. Sometimes you learn because you lose. And sometimes the most important lessons come from people who care enough to tell you when you’re wrong.

Thinking back to that little café in Indonesia, it’s difficult to imagine that the teenager questioning the price of a latte could have predicted where coffee would eventually take him. A cup of filter coffee with unexpected sweetness sparked his curiosity, but it was the relationships he built afterward that gave his journey meaning.

And recently, one of those relationships led to a moment that brought his story into even sharper focus.

Some Victories Are Shared

Not long after our conversation with Windu, his friend and teammate Ruben achieved a third-place finish at a world coffee championship in Panama. For the people watching the competition, the result was an impressive achievement. A place among the world’s best is something worth celebrating, especially considering the work and preparation required to reach that level.

Windu didn’t begin by talking about scores, brewing techniques, or the final ranking. He shared a photograph. It showed him embracing Ruben just fifteen minutes before Ruben’s final performance. Windu explained that although they had taken many photographs together, this particular image meant the most to him.

To understand why, you have to look beyond the competition. Windu and Ruben live together and work together. Their lives are filled with the ordinary routines that rarely appear in championship photographs. They wake up early, spend long days working, and sometimes return home so exhausted that one of them falls asleep on the couch. They have disagreements, as friends and coworkers sometimes do, but they also share moments of laughter and friendship that have little to do with competition results.

Windu remembered the days when Ruben swept the floor while he washed Ruben’s barista clothes. It’s such a small detail, almost funny in its simplicity, but it tells us more about their relationship than any competition ranking could.

These weren’t two people who only met during a championship. They had shared the ordinary days that came before it. When we see a competitor onstage, we usually see the polished result of months of preparation. The coffee has been carefully selected, the routine rehearsed, and every movement practiced. We see the performance, the judges, and eventually the announcement. What we rarely see are the people who helped make that moment possible, or the daily lives they shared while working toward it.

The photograph Windu posted captured something different. Fifteen minutes before Ruben stepped onto the world stage, there were no scores to celebrate and no guarantee of what would happen next. There were simply two friends embracing after everything they had been through together.

When the results were eventually announced, their team had made history. Windu described the excitement of that moment and how alive he felt hearing the announcement. Yet the photograph he chose to share was taken before any of that happened. Perhaps that’s what makes it so meaningful.

Earlier in our conversation, Windu had told us how he was learning to shift his attention away from competition results and toward the people and experiences that made the journey worthwhile. He had spent years understanding that success wasn’t something he needed to measure only through his own achievements.

Now, watching his friend succeed on the world stage, those lessons had become something he could experience rather than simply explain. He wasn’t the person standing in front of the judges, and he wasn’t the one whose name was announced. But he had been there for the early mornings, the late nights, the difficult days, and the ordinary moments that made the achievement possible. He had every reason to feel proud.

For us, that photograph says something important about Windu’s journey. The young barista who once struggled to listen to others has grown into someone who understands the value of standing beside them. The competitor who once measured his own efforts through rankings has learned to appreciate what happens before and after the results are announced. And the teenager who discovered specialty coffee because one cup tasted unexpectedly sweet has found something much more lasting than a favorite brewing recipe. He has found people worth sharing the journey with.

We often celebrate coffee champions by remembering the moment they lift a trophy. But perhaps we should also pay attention to the people standing beside them before they step onto the stage. Because sometimes, the most meaningful moment in a competition isn’t when your own name is announced.

It’s when you get to celebrate someone else’s.

Humanity runs on coffee.