My first recollection of coffee was during a stay with my aunt and her family on their farm in Zimbabwe. They had this huge kitchen, well it seemed huge to me when I was a kid, with an Aga stove on which a pot of percolating coffee bubbled away seemingly all day and night.
Fast forward to the mid 80’s when I worked as a manager at a restaurant called Langoustine by the Sea. At 9am every day, which was when we arrived, we would put on a big pot of coffee and drink from it until early the next morning when we cashed up. By then it was a thick black sludge. That was coffee back then.
After cashing up, we would go through to the Midnight Grill, the only place that was still open, to wind down. That’s where I met and became good friends with Andre Schubert (restaurateur and fellow Battle of the Beans judge.
Andre was approached by Ingrid (Shevlin) to join a panel of judges for the Sunday Tribune’s Great Cappuccino Hunt, a coffee competition that ran for 17 years from the late 90s. Andre roped me in as a judge and off we went. I think in the first competition 20+ cafes were judged. Years and plenty of average cappuccinos later, the competition included well over a hundred of coffee shops.
With our vast knowledge of judging coffee (hahaha) I was asked to help judge the South African leg of WBC (World Barista Championships). This I carried on doing for a number of years, helping to train and coach a number of baristas competing to be chosen as South Africa’s entrant to the world championships, which were held in a different country each year.
Early in the 2000s, I realised there was a gap for GOOD coffee available at events. The few mobile coffee carts around were serving bad to average coffee. So, I bought an old horse box and fitted it out as a mobile coffee unit.
In 2019, I opened The Station Stop Coffee Shop in Hilton, closing it in 2023 and returning to operating coffee mobile units.
I now have two carts that operate in the greater Midlands area. I run one personally on permanent sites – Cowanhouse School from 6am to 8pm daily, Cannons Auctioneers on Tuesdays from 8am to 11am, Saturdays at the Earth Market in Notties from 6.30am to 11am and then Linc (correct spelling) Church in Hilton on Sundays.
The other cart is run by a barista, Thubiso, who I trained, along with my daughter Rebecca. They operate the cart at odd events such as horse shows, school sports days and special corporate events.
Although I once operated a coffee roastery using an air roaster, I now have my beans specially roasted by Coastal Roasters, which also uses an air roasting system. I love this system because it gives a clean crisp roast, which is far superior to the conventional drum roaster.
I supply my beans to a couple of outlets in the Midlands and private customers around South Africa. We sell our beans from the carts as well.
Through my years in the coffee game I’ve seen a huge increase in the appreciation of better coffee. Customers are demanding a higher standard of product. From sludge in the 1980s to a world quality cappuccino in the 2020 – coffee is getting the attention and appreciation it deserves.