Wake Up, South Africa! The Coffee Revolution is Here
Like many South Africans, Pardon Sibanda used to think coffee was a watery instant beverage that needed sugar to make it tolerable. Now, he’s among a growing revolution of young, black baristas in Johannesburg who are leading this nation’s coffee revolution.
“I used to put six sugars in my coffee because I used to believe that coffee is bitter,” Sibanda joked as he expertly pulled a cappuccino with freshly roasted beans and, with a flick of his wrist, drew a pattern in the foam. “But as I learned more about coffee, I started reducing, until today, I’m not drinking any more sugar.”
Sibanda isn’t the only South African who is waking up to better coffee.
“South Africa is joining the coffee revolution and slowly escaping its faintly embarrassing instant coffee roots,” said market research group Insight Survey in a recent report on coffee.
The study noted “impressive” growth in South African coffee shops in the past two years, with a 7 percent jump in income.
Wayne Burrows says South Africa’s new generation of drinkers is more interested in what’s in the cup, and where it came from.
That, he said, is what makes South Africa’s coffee revolution different.
“I want to know the farmer who picked this coffee, the farmer who processed this coffee so that I can better describe that to the customer at the end of the day who is drinking the coffee,” he said. “And the only reason why that is taking place is that the customer is becoming more discerning. They want to taste better coffee. They want to experience better coffee.”
Burrows is, to put it mildly, an artisanal coffee evangelist. His first cup of the morning involves carefully weighing and grinding newly roasted beans to three different consistencies, brewing it through a Japanese-style drip method that looks like a chemistry set, and tasting it as carefully as an expert sommelier might sip fine wine.
Jermina Kgole says she was shocked to realize she is another such convert.
“I used to drink the instant coffee, like Ricoffee, Nescafe, and I couldn’t even tell the difference,” she said. Today, Kgole manages The Perfect Cup, one of Johannesburg’s best coffee shops.
Coffee, she says, has the power to bring people in this divided nation together. Now, she says, many of her regular customers are black, and they often request African-grown beans.
