舌尖上的航海丨第19集 海上“星巴克”

彝臻來自中國內(nèi)地一個貧苦的牧民家庭，航海學(xué)校畢業(yè)后不久，來到這艘外籍遠洋貨船做水手。

彝臻喜歡喝咖啡是從登上“星巴克”號開始的。

“星巴克”號貨輪是由世界著名咖啡店“星巴克”命名的，船艙的餐廳里，一把碩大的咖啡壺，敞開免費供應(yīng)?？Х葔厣腺N有一張“星巴克”創(chuàng)始人舒爾茨的照片。

據(jù)說，“星巴克”號船東與舒爾茨都是美籍猶太人。

彝臻心想：這里面一定有玄機和奧妙。

一天，剛上船不久的彝臻去問水手長湯姆。湯姆是正宗的美國人，湯姆告訴他，過些日子“星巴克”回美國修船，到時一切都會“大白于天下”。

“星巴克”號靠上西雅圖“老人與海”船廠塢修，正值“星巴克”號下水十周年。

“星巴克”下水十周年慶?；顒訜狒[非凡；船東的親朋好友，航運界的精英大腕，云集船上，其中一位胖胖的鬢發(fā)斑白的老人引起彝臻的注意；這與咖啡壺上的照片同出一轍。人們告訴他：“星巴克”創(chuàng)始人舒爾茨。

船東巴沙爾是位中年漢子，熱情地將舒爾茨迎進船上貴賓室。

水手長湯姆給彝臻講訴了船東巴沙爾與舒爾茨間，一段感人的故事。

二戰(zhàn)期間，巴沙爾全家為躲避法西斯的屠殺，漂洋過海亡命美國。貧病交加的父母先后離世，孤苦伶仃的巴沙爾終日流浪街頭。

一天黃昏，饑腸轆轆的巴沙爾昏倒在一家咖啡廳前。待他醒來，已經(jīng)躺在咖啡廳的沙發(fā)椅上，桌上一杯熱氣騰騰散發(fā)著芬香的咖啡，使巴沙爾熱淚盈眶。

聽完巴沙爾的遭遇，店主破例留下了巴沙爾，成了咖啡店的一名員工。

出身貧苦的巴沙爾生活有了保障。悲慘的身世使巴沙爾對未來失去了信心，終日無精打采悶悶不樂，

一天，心不在焉的巴沙爾打碎了盛滿咖啡的杯子，還弄臟了客人的衣物。

客人聽完巴沙爾的身世，沒有責怪他并把他帶到貧民區(qū)一座破舊的老房子面前，講了一個老房子主人的故事。

大約四十多年前的圣誕節(jié)，家家燈火璀璨，美食飄香。

房子里一個十二歲的小男孩和二個弟弟餓的肚子咕咕叫。

因車禍失去工作的父親，沒有了經(jīng)濟來源。整天以酒消愁。

挨打受罵是兄弟三人的家常便飯，母親一時借不到錢，只好把三個孩子全都趕到街上玩耍。

圣誕節(jié)促銷商品琳瑯滿目。一罐包裝精美的咖啡使十二歲的小男孩萌發(fā)了異想，讓多天未沾咖啡的父親開心一下。趁店主不注意。小男孩快速將咖啡罐塞到衣袋里，不巧被店主看到了。

小男孩撒腿就跑，自以為甩掉了店主。

回到家里急忙打開咖啡罐，香濃的氣息飄逸而出，父親十分開心。然而，父親還未來得及品嘗，店主趕到了。

小男孩遭到父親一頓毒打。

刻骨銘心的圣誕之夜，使這個十二歲的小男孩終生難忘。

后來，小男孩長大成人，進入了北密歇根大學(xué)。一邊打工，一邊讀書。

艱苦環(huán)境使他不斷成長。大學(xué)畢業(yè)后，從一個普通的銷售員做起，直到晉升為一家公司的總裁。

就任總裁的當天，父親打電話想要見他，由于忙與一位客戶談判，沒有時間回家，幾天后，父親去世了。

在整理父親遺物時，他發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個銹跡斑斑的咖啡罐，正是當年那個偷來的咖啡罐！

蓋子上面留有父親的筆跡：兒子送的禮物。1964年圣誕節(jié)，罐子里還有一封信：

“親愛的兒子，作為一位父親，我很失敗，沒能給你提供優(yōu)越的生活環(huán)境。但是我也有夢想。我的最大夢想，就是擁有一間咖啡屋。悠閑的時候為你們研磨咖啡，這個愿望無法實現(xiàn)了。我希望兒子能擁有這樣的幸福?！?/p>

讀完這封信，他感慨萬分；昔日的打罵成了珍貴的記憶，苦難成了奮斗的動力；“既然父親的愿望是開間咖啡館，我替他實現(xiàn)這個愿望吧！”

最終，他辭去公司總裁的職務(wù)，專心留意與咖啡館有關(guān)的信息。兩年后湊足了資金，買下了一家銷售咖啡豆的公司。

當巴沙爾最后得知，那家公司就是聞名于世的“星巴克”，眼前的這位客人就是當年的小男孩，如今“星巴克”的創(chuàng)始人舒爾茨時，眼里噙著淚花，握住對方的手不肯放開。

巴沙爾終于從悲觀的陰影里走出來的。經(jīng)過多年的拼搏，終于有了自己的輪船公司。為了紀念那段難忘的經(jīng)歷，感謝舒爾茨對他的教誨，首艘下水的船，特地命名為“星巴克”。

彝臻終于找到了答案，受到一次勵志的教育，也喜歡了喝咖啡。

as a shepherd on his family’s farm. When he was young, he dreamed of one day going out to

sea and becoming a sailor.

He worked hard to get into nautical school and graduated with honors. Soon after, he got

hired as a shiphand on a foreign steamship named SS Starbucks.

Ever since he boarded SS Starbucks, Yi Zhen had fallen in love with coffee.

SS Starbucks was a steam-powered cargo ship named after the famous coffee chain,

Starbucks. Every morning, the captain of the steamship brewed a pot of coffee and kept it in

the break room for any shiphand and sailor to indulge in for free, and each crew member took

turns refilling and cleaning the pot. Next to it sat a graying photograph of the founder of

Starbucks, Howard Schultz.

Yi Zhen found it strange how their cargo liner had so many allusions to a coffee

company. Perhaps, he wondered, was there some relation between the ship’s captain and

Howard Schultz?

Yi Zhen sought the advice of a friend of his, a fellow shiphand named Thomas. Thomas

had worked onboard SS Starbucks for many years, and told Yi Zhen that his confusion will

soon be cleared as SS Starbucks returns to the United States for restocking and repairs.

SS Starbucks docked at the Port of Seattle and awaited its renewal at the Ballard

Shipyard, while also celebrating its seventy-year anniversary. The celebrations were festive

and lively; friends and relatives of the shipowner and businessmen and managers from the

shipping company gathered onboard the deck of SS Starbucks. Among them, one person in

particular caught Yi Zhen’s eye - a chubby man with graying hair wearing a black suit walked

along the deck, speaking to friends and occasionally looking over the horizon. He looked

exactly like the photograph that was displayed in SS Starbucks’ break room.

His fellow shiphands whispered to Yi Zhen, that it was none other than the founder of

Starbucks, Howard Schultz.

Yi Zhen and Thomas watched as Captain Becher of SS Starbucks warmly welcomed

Schultz into the executive lounge. As they disappeared, Thomas began to explain how Becher

and Schultz knew one another.

During the Second World War, Becher and his family escaped the rise of the Nazi Party

in Germany by sea and travelled to the United States in search for refuge. But after arriving in

the Americas after a long and arduous voyage, both of Becher’s parents fell sick and passed

away, leaving Becher to roam the streets as an orphan.

One morning, a starving Becher fainted in front of a restaurant while looking for scraps

of food that people threw away. When he woke up, he found himself lying down on the sofa

inside the restaurant with a blanket softly covering him and a steaming cup of coffee and

biscuits prepared on the table. The owner of the coffee store stood behind the counter, smiled,

and nodded at Becher, letting him know that the food was for him.

Becher’s eyes filled up with tears. He told his tragic story to the store owner, who

insisted on making an exception to the café’s rules and hiring Becher to work in the shop.

Though Becher was given a new chance at life, his past constantly haunted him, causing

him to worry about his future. Slowly, Becher lost confidence, and became too sullen to

work, to the point of shattering a glass mug and spilling coffee on a customer’s shirt.

But the customer did not scold or berate Becher. Instead, he asked Becher why such a

young boy was working at a restaurant. After listening to Becher’s devastating past, the man

told Becher a different story.

Around forty years ago on Christmas day, when most houses were lit bright with candles

and stocked with all kinds of delicious dishes, one family was left hungry with no gifts or

light within their home. A twelve-year-old boy and his two younger brothers sat in front of

their window, praying for a Christmas miracle.

Their father recently got into a car accident that left him unable to work, and the

family’s only source of income was cut off. He turned to alcohol to drown his sorrows, and

continuously beat his sons, who became nothing but extra mouths to feed. The children’s

mother could not get hired for a job and had no luck in borrowing money from relatives, so

the three kids spent most of their days playing on the streets, away from the ceaseless anger

and emptiness that filled their home.

As the twelve-year-old boy roamed the streets, he noticed the Christmas sales and

discounts that were being advertised in every window display. The boy stopped in front of a

coffee store, set his gaze on the delicately packaged jar of coffee beans that filled its shelves,

and thought of how happy his father would be if he got to taste his beloved coffee again after

many weeks.

When the shopkeeper wasn’t paying attention, the boy sneaked into the coffee store,

grabbed the jar of coffee, slipped between the crowd of people, and bolted out of the front

door and through the streets back home.

He locked his house doors and thought that the shopkeeper had lost him. Quickly, he

opened the jar of coffee and showed it to his father, the heavy smells of the coffee beans

filling the cold air within their home. But before his father could even begin brewing the

beans into coffee, the shopkeeper knocked on the family’s door, and the harsh truth spilled off

of the boy’s reluctant tongue.

His father was instantly enraged and beat him until the clock struck midnight.

The boy cried himself to sleep that night. Not only was his plan to cheer up his father

ultimately a fluke, he also inadvertently ruined his entire family’s Christmas. No matter how

hard he tried, the boy couldn’t forget what had happened that night.

The boy worked hard his whole life to make a better future for his family, and was

eventually accepted to Northern Michigan University. He studied hard in school and worked

part time to make some extra money for his younger brothers. The difficult times that he and

his siblings went through became their driving force in creating a brighter future.

After the boy graduated, he was hired as an ordinary salesman at a large company, and

later climbed his way up until he was promoted to the President.

On the day he got his appointment as President, his father unexpectedly called him and

asked to meet him. But due to his busy schedule with clients and meetings, he told his father

to wait a couple of weeks.

Two days later, his father passed away.

The boy’s spirits sank as he sorted through the belongings his father left.

As he looked through the last box, he noticed a rusty coffee jar hidden beneath old

clothes and dusty books. He dug deep inside and retrieved the old jar. It was the very same

one he had stolen for his father all those years ago!

On the lid of the jar, his father had written in marker, “A Gift from My Son, Christmas

1964”. Slowly, the boy twisted open the jar and looked inside, and found a letter.

“Dear son,

As a father, I have failed to provide you with a loving home and environment. Not a

single day goes by when I don’t regret who I treated you and your brothers. But I, too, had a

dream of my own. I wished to one day own my own coffee shop and grind coffee for you and

your siblings, but I will never be able to achieve that fantasy of mine. I can only hope that

you can have the happiness that I couldn’t, and accomplish whatever you set out to do.”

The boy sat in his attic reading the letter, and felt tears streaming down his face. The

blurred memories of anger and pain cleared into signs of frustration from a father who loved

his children, but was helpless; the struggles they went through together as a family became

motivation for the brothers to succeed. The boy also felt a sense of regret stirring within his

heart. He was too young to understand and help his father when his father was weak and

disabled.

But he had since grown into a capable and successful man, and also had a deep love for

coffee.

The boy decided to achieve his father’s dreams for him, and to own the greatest coffee

shop in the world. He quit his job as president, and within two years, the boy had become the

president of Starbucks.

Becher learned that the boy was Howard Schultz, and he was the man sitting right in

front of him on that very day. Becher realized that Schultz had lifted himself out of adversity,

and despite his sufferings, became a man who set out to help others. From then on, Schultz

made sure to visit Becher every once in a while, and Becher was determined to escape the

shadows of his tormented childhood, and become a new man.

Instead of the grey outlook of life he was once, Becher followed the rose-colored final

memories he had of his parents - telling stories and depending on one another while afloat at

sea. After years of countless difficulties, he started his own shipping company and appointed

himself as the president and captain of one of their ships. To honor the man that helped him

get out of the toughest period of his life, Becher named the first ship he ever constructed SS

Starbucks after Schultz’s company.

Listening to the story, Yi Zhen grew insurmountable amounts of respect for both Becher

and Schultz. Everyday onwards, he had a glass of coffee in the break room and sat next to

Schultz’s photograph, admiring the two great men’s resilience.