Histories

Meet the juice man

By Julien Neaves

Trinidad Express Newspapers

Story Created: Feb 8, 2011 at 11:55 PM ECT

Manager of "D" Juice Man, Junior Warner, pours a cup of pawpaw juice last week at his business
upstairs Town Centre Mall, downtown Port of Spain. As a child, Junior Warner and his friends would
knock down fruit from trees to supplement their daily meals. He says most children of today do not
even know about doing something like this. Through his natural juice business, "D" Juice Man, he
believes that he can bring to the public a significant part of their culinary heritage through a wider
range of indigenous beverages which was this country's best kept secret, "even from Trinidadians".

At the business, located upstairs Town Centre Mall in downtown Port of Spain, there are about 40
large bottles with a variety of juices. A slogan says they have "2,000" combinations. The Business Express
was provided with samples of tamarind, cucumber with a hint of ginger, mammy apple, balata and soursop,
which had a very warm and comfortable taste. Warner said they pioneered a soursop and barbadine without
milk, the former being their flagship drink, with portugal coming a close second. He noted that because
most people do not like surprises they offer samples, which is often the "death knell" as his juices are
"highly addictive". "If you make a mistake of tasting them, that's it."

Warner recalled he and his wife started the business with 15 different juices and that number has grown
to around 50. Other fruits include downs, five finger, pommecythere, pomerac, Caribbean plum, governor plum,
hog plum, cashew, rolling cherries, sapodilla, and tonka bean. He said they began with the widest range of
juices and kept adding new ones to keep that edge. "So we keep pushing the limits (to be) the largest
purveyor of indigenous juices, probably in the world."

The couple previously had a vegetarian restaurant in St James but they were forced to shut down. His wife
had the idea to go into the indigenous juice business and while "it made absolutely no sense" to him,
Warner agreed. But eventually the business helped take care of a number of their financial needs and proved
itself to be viable, which shocked him. "Nobody could have told me juices could be sustained as a stand-alone
business." They have been at the Town Centre location since August 2008 after spending a couple of months
in St James and then a little under two years at the strip on the Queen's Park Savannah.

Warner said juicing was his passion and he also did the extraction. He noted there was a certain process for
juicing a chennet, for example, while star apple or caimate and cashew had to be scalded (placed in boiling water)
so it wouldn't "tie up your tongue". "So that over the years, and a lot experimentation, we've figured out how
to handle indigenous juices, that's until we meet a new one and we begin the process all over again."

They make juices specific to their customers, based on age, gender, temperament, reducing acid for pregnant women,
and reducing sugar for older people and diabetics. The juices are both sweetened and unsweetened.

Warner's personal favourite is a soursop with watermelon and probably a touch of barbadine. They also combine
their juices at no extra cost.
Meet the juice man: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/business-magazine/Meet_the_juice_man-115615629.html