There is a shop just west of the Flat Iron building in New York that sells hot cocoa. The liquid is scooped up from a steaming pool and returned after a 360 spin on a rotating steel wheel behind the counter. It has customers mesmerised. It’s a huge shop with plenty of space but people still have to queue out on the street, especially in winter. This is not unusual in New York. Many New Yorkers take books to read wherever they go; but here, no one reads. They stare at the wheel. Some whimper, but not with cold.
A cup of hot nectar in hand is like holding the pot at the end of a chocolate rainbow. A first sip is like finding something under your seat on Oprah.
The effect from this coffee shop in Cape Town is not dissimilar. But that’s where the parallel ends. Deluxe Coffeeworks doesn’t need spinning wheels. Two cups of this stuff and you’ll see plenty of ’em. The shop is tiny. You don’t have a choice but to wait outside sometimes. And no queue here, it’s a mosh pit of artists, designers, delivery boys, journos and bankers. A cup only costs 12 bucks – many, many bankers.
Yeah, it’s got something of a theme and a design thing going on, but who cares. It’s about the coffee. The roasting machine chugs away right behind the counter. Discarded containers, sacks and beans are scattered about; the detritus of the coffee alchemy. No style mag or foodie blog is gonna do justice by emptying it of people, peeling the fridge magnets and photos from the espresso station and neatening it all up for a photo: Soft focus on the flat whites; spilled beans from a sack and not a kernel out of place. Stuff that, behind the counter you’re steppin’ on beans and those flat whites come hard and fast and in full focus.
The baristas are definitely using the stuff. They have thousand-bean stares. Carl, the proprietor and chief alchemist, encourages them. He and his biz partner, Judd, started roasting in Carl’s backyard and dealing to a clientele that grew and grew until they were doing 20 keys a week. The next step was their own shop here in Church Street, just off Burg Street. Carl says they were looking at opening another Deluxe Coffeeworks in uber trendy De Waterkant, but they are staying put. There is something about Church Street. It’s no cat walk. The mix of people, none of them posers. Eclectic is too trendy a word. It’s the real thing. But what do I know, I’m just a user with a hankering for a fix who stands in Church Street, stares through the window and whimpers, but not with cold.
Contact
Deluxe Coffeeworks
Church Street, Cape Town
Tel 082-681-5740
www.deluxecoffeeworks.co.za
