Santuario: The Adventures of Captain Mancini

Captain Matthew Mancini grew up on the docks of Portage Lakes in Ohio. Mornings often began the same gentle way — catching a few bluegill under a weeping willow tree with his secret bait, Double Bubble — the chewing gum, a round of skip-a-fish, followed by a few sneaky sips of his father’s Maxwell House coffee. Summers were spent pontooning, and building tree houses on a small island he and his younger brother claimed on the lake, where most of his father’s tools still remain for archaeologists to find. They camped in the backyard. They caught late-night catfish. They swatted fireflies with a wooden bat he received on Bat Day from the hometown AAA baseball team. At the game, the young Captain had an alternate plan: mitt on, waiting on ridiculous foul balls with a blind view, at a concession-stand hot spot. He may have missed the entirety of the game, but he went home with a profitable bag full of baseballs. Those hours never left him.

The Captain always had a heart bent toward adventure and exploration. At the age of 20 he made the abrupt choice to chase an unknown dream in Southern California. The move sat heavy on his father, deepening an empty-nest ache his father already carried. In true fashion, that ache kept him busy restoring antique Mercedes-Benz cars, and confiding in a flock of illegally migrating Canadian geese — from his favorite chair, an upside-down 5-gallon bucket along the channel.

The Captain and his father remained close, often calling excessively to bounce ideas off him. One day the Captain’s father passed away abruptly from an attack on his heart — also known as a myocardial infarction, caused by a lack of fishing. Mancini went looking for a way to ease the heartache — and walked straight into a larger voyage than he had planned. The road led him to Colombia, where an exotic bruja — her skills sharp but deeply confined — sat at a neighboring café table enjoying his father’s favorite carrot cakes. She spoke out, “Escúsame, gringo — you like carrot cakes?” The Captain shrugged. “Come try. It’s muy rico.” After the smallest bite, her bill was combined with his coffee. A true gentleman, the Captain paid in full, despite not knowing her. He has since declined any samples of anything outside of Costco. The next day she invited him onto a bus bound for the tippy top of the Colombian Andes. There, in a town the maps barely bothered with, he found an antique Mercedes converted into a barista cart. After the sunset over the mountains, the fireflies rose that evening like a second set of stars. Something in him finally went still. It felt like home — and like a beginning.

That night the Captain stayed on an orchid farm in a town called Filandia. A recurring dream began of his father at the top of a mountain, on a horse named Tripod, slightly resembling Juan Valdez — wearing a wide white straw hat, with a slightly disturbing moustache. The horse had a majestic spotted coat that seemed tailored to his father’s exquisite pants. Quietly, his father held out coffee cherries in the palm of his hand, as if he had found an exquisite treasure. It was not a farewell. It was a commission. The Holy Grail of coffee. Santuario was born from that.

Years later, after catching the bruja casting a spell in an attempt to sabotage his dreams, he agreed to pay for a long Uber ride to la Región Amazónica. The Captain hired a crew and sailed the harvest home across open water. A storm rose up and tried to take the whole story with it. The crew insisted he throw the coffee overboard — to drop the cargo weight and right the ship. He considered it… then politely declined. Life jackets on every sack. He advised the crew to quickly enter the life raft named Unsinkable IIII. The Captain gave his best Forrest Gump wave, and stayed with what he loved. Some cargo is not just cargo. It is the dream you were trusted to bring home.

The coffee survived. So did the Captain.

Santuario — coffee worth the crew.

The man who handed him the cherries.