We are so lucky in South Africa to have a booming micro-roastery landscape and we love to meet the humans behind the roaster and hear their stories.
Tell us about how TREAT Coffee Roasters began? Whose dream was it?
TREAT Coffee roasters was founded by me, Matthew de Freitas, just after lockdown in 2020 when I found a tiny 1kg Turkish roaster for sale at an absolute steal. I decided why not give it a go. I had one small coffee bar at the time, and thought it could be a fun experiment to try take over one more link in the quality chain, and offer a more complete experience to our customers. I’ve always been curious of the process, and to my surprise it came quite naturally!
The brand came from a line I used to drop way too often after having a treat: what a TREAT! Emphasis on the TREAT! And the TREAT logo was designed by my brother in-law at 2am after a late night off red wine dreaming, and the Pantone was pretty much a guess, but it all worked out at the end!
Since then we’ve grown into a much bigger operation with a roastery in Brackenfell, a flagship cafe in Durbanville, and 2 coffee pods. We also run 3 coffee shops called Coffeeworks at Specialized Bicycle stores in Cape Town.
We love your motto, ‘You don’t need a reason for a Treat!’ How have you built your brand and community around this idea over the years?
It started when I was thinking: what do we want to offer? And it was simple, affordable and convenient offerings, that you really don’t need a reason to come on over and enjoy, literally every day. It grew from there. We’re saying Treat yourself, not only to a sneaky little treat, but to really good specialty coffee. Don’t compromise on that. Support local and do it often.
We now incorporate the principles of Authentic, Quality Obsessed, and Community Focussed around that, from the full experience of our flagship cafe, to our Coffee Pods.
You also do fabulous baked goods and have a wine bar? Were these natural progressions of your original idea and follow up question, when do you sleep?!
LOL! These actually all came completely on their own!
The baked goods are all focused on the principle of authentic and quality obsessed. We’re constantly looking for new ideas, new suppliers to work with and where we can improve. Our croissants are honesty some of the best in Cape Town (we hide them behind the boerewors curtain!), and the Pasties de Nata are truly authentic and pay homage to my Portuguese roots. The tile pattern you find across our stores actually comes from my dad’s village of Câmara de Lobos on Madeira Island, which is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and something we try to emulate through the TREAT brand. Another pastry we sell is called Banitsa, which is a Bulgarian traditional pastry made with layers of crispy phyllo pastry filled with feta cheese, and is made by my mother in-law. My wife is the banana bread and carrot cake queen!
The wine bar concept came around last year when a friend and customer, Emile Gentis, approached me when we were moving stores, to open a boutique wine bar alongside our cafe to showcase his wines called Thor. After a full 60 seconds of thought, we agreed to make it a reality!
Emile is a 3rd generation wine maker from Stellenbsoch, and he is a master blender. He has a knack of finding really good grapes and wine, to transform into something truly special.
Coffee keeps me going in the morning, and wine by the evening!
You have upgraded roasters during your journey, what was the change like from small to upsized! Was it a challenge as a roaster?
The 1kg roaster didn’t last long! After about 6 months the sometimes 10hour roasting sessions got a little out of hand, and I upgraded to a Genio 6.
It was daunting at first, as the 1kg roaster was tiny and manual with no software, so the Genio was more of a technical mind-blow than anything else. I got the hang of it pretty quacky and haven’t looked back since. The build quality and technicality of these roasters are amazing, and it’s honestly insane that they’re built right here in SA. We’re now planning our Genio 15kg roaster!
I must say, starting on a small roaster really does teach invaluable lessons and gives a great understanding of the art of roasting coffee, I can attribute a lot of our success to that little roaster, which I believe has made its way to Ceres of all places!
Tell us about your coffee pods? They look awesome and that TREAT-blue Henlo is insane! Are you looking to franchise or are they all part of your expanding business?
The Coffee Pods came around last year when a friend identified an amazing piece of land, after a few months of planning, the Pod was opened, and was so much cooler than we thought! The concept is community focused, and all about bringing localised communities together closer to home, with really good specialty coffee.
They have become an intricate part of the business and brand. Currently we have 2 open, working on a 3rd site, and looking for more community based locations that’ll fit our concept. We have actually just signed our first franchisee, and are looking for the next to grow this concept across Cape Town, and then, who knows! Feel free to reach out if you have a location you think would work for the next Treat Coffee Pod!
The Henlo was something special. I met Henlo just after he started the brand, and immediately knew I wanted one of these one day. I followed his journey as he grew his brand, and he came around whenever he was in Cape Town. Eventually when we moved our cafe last year, I decided we need to step up a level, and I absolutely needed to have a Henlo as the feature point of the entire cafe. I put the order in and before we knew it, the machine was there in all its glory and I couldn’t be happier with my decision. It also goes really well with the South African made Genio roaster.
What is your favourite coffee bean or blend right now?
At the moment we are going through the last of a Honey processed Colombia Caturra from Elkin Guzman, that we got from Jose and Nicole from Sabores. We used this coffee at the WInelands Coffee Expo and it went down a treat!
The next coffee we're getting is another from Sabores, an Orange Bourbon also from Elkin Guzman. The guys is a genius and I’m glad Sabores are bringing in these coffee’s. Otherwise I’ve always had a soft spot for a Nicaragua, and a Natural from Rugali in Rwanda is still probably my favourite coffee of all time.
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