By Iain Evans
Craft Coffee is situated in downtown JoBurg, and is the bespoke Roastery that is owned by the brothers Chris and Andrew Brown, of The Daily Buzz fame. I visited on a Tuesday afternoon and was really impressed by the setup. It is one of those re-gentrification projects that fires you up and makes you feel really optimistic about taking something old, broken and run-down and giving it a new lease on life.
The Jopher roasters, (both of them) were working hard during my visit, and operated chiefly by Chris and Japhet. There is a training facility downstairs which was about to give a half-dozen baristas from The Daily Buzz some ongoing training. Chris plans to put a full WBC spec setup down there to allow those who want to practise their routine for Regionals or Nationals a place to do it.
Another familiar face was Mark Farnell, also no stranger to the industry, and we have it on good authority that a former SA barista Champ is joining the Craft Coffee team from September! You can rest assured that the Brown brothers do things properly.
Besides roasting for The Daily Buzz, they are opening up their services to everyone looking for a quality roasting partnership. Further to this, Craft Coffee is starting a line of exclusive single origins, which won't be cheap, in an effort to push the consumer experience to the next level. I loved the pin up girl concept, and they also plan to release a cheeky pin-up girl calendar with their December releases - great thinking!
