African coffee becoming all the rage
BARRISTA Stanley Ngubeni presides over the counter at Braamfontein’s Double Shot Coffee and Tea. “I got employed here last year in August … I had to learn everything quickly. Before that, just like many who come from the township, coffee for me was just coffee, and I had no idea that there is such a thing as coffee culture. Drinking coffee is actually a serious cultural thing,” he says.
“Before I worked here I took the serving and drinking of coffee for granted…. Where you drink coffee makes a difference.
“I personally have my own favourite coffee shop in town that I frequent, besides of course drinking coffee at work,” says Ngubeni.
He’s converted his girlfriend. “She never ever even tries to make coffee for me. Instead, she always asks me to make coffee for her.”
Double Shot does not just sell coffee, it holds demonstrations on how to pair coffee with food and aims to educate those who think coffee is just coffee.
Johannesburg is awash with coffee shops, many of which serve a variety of African coffees and coffee blends, and, of course, South African coffee.
Ngubeni leans over the counter. “Here we serve all kinds of coffee, such as Malawian coffee, Kenyan coffee, Costa Rican coffee and Zimbabwean coffee, among others. One of the co-owners of Double Shot fortunately has a coffee farm in Malawi. We bring the coffee fresh from there and burn the coffee right here and the customers can see us do just that,” he says, adding that Malawi’s coffee is among the most popular.
“We have a sense that night life in Braamfontein is picking up fast, and some people after hours would like to sit down, relax and enjoy a cup of coffee with friends. Our customers are so varied, some so loyal that we even now know what coffee they drink without even asking them,” Ngubeni says.
Double Shot is not the only place that has got on the African coffee bandwagon. There is also the Motherland franchise group (in Braamfontein, Rosebank, Dunkeld and the Cape Town city centre), where the coffee served is African, and Fair Trade certified, meaning that the transaction between farmers and middlemen is designed to ensure the individual hand-to-mouth farmer is not short-changed.
It is to coffee that Newtown’s Calidi’s owes its survival of a tough period during which visitor numbers shrank, partly due to construction activities at the soon to be opened Junction Mall.
Its popular brands played a part in retaining the attention of the artists and arts administrators, historians and academics from institutions such as Museum Africa, the Market Theatre, Bassline, Moving into Dance, the Dance Factory and the Artist Proof Studio.
At the other end of the old city centre — Maboneng, on the east — Kahawa Coffee coowner Pitsira Ragophala says African coffee is very popular.
“What we noticed immediately (after opening) is that a lot of our patrons ask for particularly African coffee, and therefore we serve mainly coffee from Kenya, which has turned out to be the most popular. In fact, we are currently negotiating with a coffee farmer in Kenya for us to package brand that coffee here.”