The extraordinary steampunk-inspired interior of Truth Coffee has garnered the shop international attention – and helped the Cape Town coffee roastery earn the title as the best coffee shop in the world. Photo: Shanna Jones / Yatzer
By Anne Taylor
10 October 2013
Truth Coffee Shop, in the heart of Cape Town, has been named the Best Coffee Shop in the World.
Bestowed by MSN Travel’s Tom Midlane, Truth’s latest honour comes after a string of high-profile accolades for the unusual shop. In September, Truth was named as the first-ever African finalist in the UK and International Restaurant and Bar Design Awards.
‘Not all coffees are created equal. The streets are overflowing with watery brew; and this taste-bud nightmare continues to exist because good people remain silent. No longer! This travesty of coffee justice ends right here with this institution.’ – Truth Coffee’s manifesto
Designed and conceptualised by Haldane Martin, the coffee shop epitomises South Africa’s fringe fascination with steampunk. And as it is as a coffee roastery that Truth is best known among Capetonians, the 1940s’-era Probat coffee roaster wired with modern electronics – known as Professor Jones’s Fabulous Coffee Bean Contraption – is the heart of the shop.
Explaining why they use this contraption, founder David Donde writes on the company’s blog: “The vintage roaster drum is cast iron, this changed in the sixties to mild steel. The cast iron seems to make coffee taste better. Maybe it is just easier to roast on, and that is why, although some say it is because the cast iron gives off radiant and convective heat. Why the electronics? So we can see what the hell we are doing!”
Truth specialises in producing artisanal-style coffees, and supplies some of the country’s top restaurants and hotels.
- Read more on MediaClub South Africa: Steampunk chugs along in South Africa
- Visit Truth Coffee: www.truthcoffee.com
