Specialty coffee in South Africa
Specialty coffee in South Africa is centred on Cape Town, where Truth Coffee was twice voted best coffee shop in the world, in 2015 and 2016. Cape Town's modern coffee culture began in the early 2000s, when a handful of enthusiasts opened coffeehouses; by 2003 a city coffee route already included more than 40 shops. David Donde, formerly of Origin Coffee Roasting and later founder of Truth, set up the Specialty Coffee Association of South Africa in 2007. The first Cape Town Coffee Festival was held at the Castle of Good Hope in 2019, and Espresso Lab was ranked 11th among the world's coffee shops in 2025.
Cape Town holds almost all of the cafés listed here, with the city centre the densest area and Woodstock, Muizenberg and Claremont adding neighbourhood scenes. Stellenbosch in the winelands has a smaller group of specialty cafés.
Roasters include The Coffee Project, alongside long-established Cape Town names such as Truth, Origin, Rosetta and Espresso Lab. Expect a compact city-centre scene with more than 70 coffeehouses in the CBD alone, and a festival culture that drew more than 65 exhibitors to its first edition.
