¡Feliz Año Nuevo! Happy Friday, and welcome to Comprende, edition 077.

After a brief holiday hiatus, we’re back!

The end of last year was full in the best way. Some big new partnerships, incredible end-of-year campaigns, travel, family, and perspective shifts. Enough movement that I needed to step back for a moment, sit with a few stories, and be intentional about how to start 2026.

This story is one I’ve been holding onto for a while, and honestly, one of my favorites.

It's a story about inheritance, but more than that, it's about what happens when you choose to honor what came before while carving out your own space. About coming home smelling like coffee every day and being grateful for it.

So, depending on where you are in the world, grab your cafécito or cervecita and dive in. If you enjoy today’s edition, please forward it to your gente or share it online. Let’s keep growing this comunidad together. ☕️🍺

In the early 1960s, in a cramped and hot Harlem kitchen, Rogelio 'Roy' Montes De Oca roasted coffee on a stovetop while his wife Ines tasted each batch for what would become Café Aroma. "Yes to this, no to that, more of this, more of that," she'd say. 

They'd fled Cuba with next to nothing. Roy had only a sixth-grade education, but Ines knew agriculture, knew coffee, and Roy had what his granddaughter Bernadette Gerrity now calls "this entrepreneurial spirit coursing through his blood."

Bernadette, who now serves as Vice President, shared her family's journey with the kind of genuine pride and warmth that draws you in. Roy started selling his coffee door to door. Friends, neighbors, then restaurants, then the small stores sprouting up in their enclave. The community rallied around them.

"There was a lot of support because of that," she mentioned. "Eventually, their neighbors and their friends and all the patronage they had in their community really helped them build a small business for themselves that they were able to thankfully sustain."

By 1991, Café Aroma was packaged and on shelves, a cult favorite embedded in New York bodegas across all five boroughs. "If you knew, you knew," Bernadette says.

Years later, when the In the Heights team was filming, they called asking for product. "They were like, 'Your coffee is everywhere. Can you send some to the set to make it seem authentic?' And we were like, 'Oh my God.' That's when we knew, we have this really cultural brand that's recognized."

"My grandmother and grandfather, they had the idea, the gumption, and the spirit and the bravery to go out and do something," she tells me. "But my mom and my aunt, they truly, they took the business, and they amplified it."

During Roy’s middle age, Bernadette's mother Edilia (now COO), and aunt Ruth (now CEO) took over and told him to go enjoy his life. "They were like, 'Congratulations. You made it. We're gonna try to make it ourselves now. We're gonna do it for you.'"

Under Edilia and Ruth's leadership, the business blossomed. They built relationships with major supermarkets, grew Café Aroma's footprint, and expanded the private label operation, allowing them to purchase coffee in larger volumes while keeping prices accessible.

And they did something remarkable: They gave Roy his dream. He'd always loved aviation; the family had escaped Cuba on Pan Am Airlines, which inspired the umbrella company name, Pan American Coffee Company. When Edilia and Ruth gained control and started finding success both in their branded products and private label business, they told him: go learn to fly. "As a hobby, he got his commercial pilot's license," Bernadette says, and you can hear the pride in her voice. "He went all the way with everything.”

Bernadette joined in 2018 in her late twenties, coming from corporate coffee trading with big questions. "I said to my mom, 'So what's my trajectory? What do you see me doing in the next year or three years or five years?'" She laughs at the memory. "And she's like, 'What are you talking about? You're going to answer the phone, and you're going to do whatever needs to get done.'"

She'd been thinking she was "this hot commodity, no pun intended." Instead, she answered phones, worked the line, did deliveries, and did anything that was needed. This allowed her to learn the business from the ground up, just like her mother and aunt had done, eventually carving out her space in marketing, creative, and strategy. 

Bernadette brought something fresh. Having spent time in fashion early in her career and understanding how culture moves, she leaned into the vintage packaging Roy had designed himself and created apparel inspired by his old promotional t-shirts and designs.

Recognizing what works in an era of nostalgia and hype culture, the apparel sells out regularly now. "I get texts from friends [who see people wearing the brand] that are like, 'Spotted!' And I'm like, 'This is so cool.'" 

She's also drawn on her training as a certified sommelier, to think about how coffee can elevate. "I was getting really inspired by the wine business," she explains. "I wanted to create a product that paid homage to the fact that we've been in business for such a long time." 

Last year, they released Café Aroma ESPECIAL, a premium blend where the family, Bernadette, her mother, her aunt, and her cousin Sal (VP of Sales), each contributed, sampling different beans and choosing their favorite coffee origins. "The four of us took all of our favorite coffees and put them into one," she says. "I often refer to it as my ‘Sunday coffee’. I drink the Café Aroma Original pretty much every day and then the Especial I have on the weekends."

She's thrown events in Soho, the Hamptons, and even done pop-ups at New York Fashion Week. A flagship Café opens in Boca Raton in early 2026. The coffee that was once hyperlocal now sits on Walmart, ShopRite, and retail shelves nationwide. But running it all? It's still family.

"My mom and my aunt, they really were pioneers in their industry as women," Bernadette says, and this feels central to how she understands her own role. Not as the person who saved anything, but as someone continuing what others built, honoring it while moving the brand forward.

Sometimes she doesn't want to go to work. She's tired. Stressed. The world feels heavy. "We're human, you know, we all have these emotions," she says. "But I have this thought of my mom and my grandfather. And honestly, it's so inspiring, it's almost heartbreaking because you start to feel guilt for not wanting to stay motivated."

She remembers what Roy used to say: "It's not so bad here, right? It's kind of nice. Kind of nice to have a place to show up to every day. Kind of nice to have a family that supports you. Kind of nice to be able to be in the same room with your family if you love them and to have something that's still standing."

Her voice softens. "What a privilege."

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