Coffee has always been a way to bring people together. In that same spirit, Silence Barista was created—a project launched in partnership with Oatly and FESOCA (Federation of Deaf People of Catalonia) to introduce specialty coffee to the deaf community and create new training and employment opportunities within the industry.
Although it is taking its first steps in Barcelona today, the project began thousands of kilometers from here. Its first edition took place in Shanghai, where Oatly launched a training program for deaf people. Since then, André Barretto, Brand
The brand’s Activation Manager couldn’t stop wondering how to bring that idea to other markets: “We kept pushing for a long time, looking for a way to make NOMAD happen, until our collaboration with NOMAD made NOMAD possible.”
To adapt to the local context, Oatly partnered with NOMAD and FESOCA to develop the pilot program in Spain. While The NOMAD Academy (TNCA) took on the challenge of designing and implementing the training, FESOCA provided the knowledge and support needed to ensure that Silence Barista met the real needs of this community.
Learning in Both Directions
Over the past few months, the classrooms at TNCA have become the place where this collaboration has taken shape. For Ivette Vera, the academy’s director, the challenge went far beyond adapting an existing course: “It wasn’t about training baristas from scratch—we do that all the time. The challenge was to completely rethink how we taught. Suddenly, something that was very simple to explain to a hearing person might not work for a deaf person.”
In addition to teaching extraction, calibration, and service, the team had to rethink how to convey each concept and build a shared vocabulary. Through that process, new ways of describing coffee emerged, as well as terms for beverages that hadn’t existed before, such as flat white and cold brew.
For Andrés and José, instructors at the academy, the experience was also “enriching.” Both explain that Silence Barista helped them realize “to what extent language shapes the way we teach and learn.”
Beyond Training
When FESOCA received the proposal, the reaction was immediate. “I thought: It’s great that someone asked before assuming it wasn’t possible. That doesn’t happen as often as it should,” says Esther Viñas, president of FESOCA.
In his experience, the deaf community faces many communication barriers, ranging from “a phone interview when you can’t hear” to “a group activity without an interpreter.” All of these situations, in his view, are “easy to resolve.”
Silence Barista sparks a conversation about how to move toward a more inclusive industry. For André Barretto, this is also a way of understanding sustainability: “I’m glad to see that sustainability can also mean this: not just what we put on the carton, but who ends up behind the bar.”
