I’m a barista, a coffee man. Physically I work 4 days a week, and it’s 40 hours. Mentally I am always at work. I can’t disconnect with the shop because I think Coffee @33 is the only real relationship I’ve got.

There is nothing wrong with perfection. When I make coffee I try to accumulate my whole previous experience into that cup of coffee I am making you. And at that point of the time I am trying to achieve perfection. I think when…when mum says goodbye to you when you are leaving or mum hugs you that is perfection because no one else can do that.

The unity of people through a drink, it always amazes me how many people became friends through my shop, coffee has an amazing impact. I had a vision, I always knew, because it wasn’t a question if, it was when, I have a coffee shop. And I had a vision of a man sitting with a single espresso and reading The Guardian for as long as he wanted. That’s the vision that drove me towards the coffee shop, and this is the reason we never clear cups before you are in the shop. That cup of coffee, it’s your anchor to be in the shop, and you can stay as long as you want. You know, I hate when you have your last sip of coffee and someone says “Oh would you like another one?” No I won’t.

I used to work for Tinderbox London and we were making 3000 coffees a day but we never had one-to-one relationship with the customer and that’s what we’ve got at 33. Because we remember the orders, we know how you feel and strangely enough, people will tell us the truth. We know if someone feels shit, they tell me. And I love that because…And I think without realising, as you said, it is a society, it is a network of people, you know, going through that.

I am so grateful that people open up to me and tell me “You know Taras, I am divorcing,” and it’s fantastic because as people imagine British society: so closed and reserved, people are closed and reserved because they are ignored and they are not listened to. Or someone does not want to listen to their problems. We have become that stranger on a train journey, that people are not afraid because we don’t judge, I think.

It’s probably 6 months ago, it’s almost a year, we had a customer who was coming for coffee 3 times a day, had cappuccino with 3 sugars, and he lived in a council estate in that tall building, the twin towers…and he hung himself. We were gutted. He never bothered you, he was always quietly in the queue there, and you ask him…he just says “Hello” but there was always an element of sadness in his eyes. It was a really, really sad day when we realised that he was not with us anymore. Seeing someone 3 times a day, probably for the past 2 years, and choosing us as a shop…you know, if he wanted a coffee fix, he could have gone to any other coffee place you know, I don’t know, something drove him towards our shop.