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Heading to coffee evangelist David Donde's new artisanal roastery/coffee shop, Truth, I'm feeling quite nervous. And slightly out of my depth, as a Goth going to a sokkiejol might. I'm a devout tea drinker. I only really have coffee – the sacrilegious, freeze-dried variety – at work in the mornings, and cups of the genuine article at the odd social occasion. Ask me to distinguish a superior Cuban blend from day-old canteen sludge, and I'm at a complete loss. Hopefully David doesn't hold it against me. Hey, maybe he can even make a convert out of me.
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When I arrive David gets us both flat whites and walks me over to the cast-iron Probat coffee roaster where fellow coffee cultist Zane Mattisson is keeping a close eye on the roasting beans. From here on, things become a bit blurry. I don't know whether it's David's impressive devotion to the hallowed bean, or the fact that he has caffeine on tap, but he talks so very fast and so very fervently about coffee that soon my notes descend into illegible scribbles.
Among other things, he tells me about the differences between artisanal and commercial roasting (the former is a surprisingly intuitive, trial-and-error process); the virtues of older cast-iron drum roasters versus the newer mild-steel kind; the fact that coffee beans pop like popcorn while roasting, and that they are vigilant about picking out defective beans after they’ve been roasted, because a burnt bean could ruin an entire batch of coffee. All the while he is scooping out beans for me to taste. They start out like chewy split peas, then take on a muesli-ish, birdseed quality, and end up crunchy, nutty and slightly bitter.
When the batch is finally ready, Zane opens a door in the roaster and the smoking beans stream out like coins from a one-armed bandit. Years of roasting experience have obviously endowed David with a pair of asbestos hands, because he grabs a handful of the piping hot pips, breaks one in half and shows me what the real McCoy should look like. “First you look at the top of the bean. If it has a black line, the bean is tipped, which means it's burnt,” he says. “The bean must have an even colour. It shouldn't look like a medium-rare steak.”
After the beans have been decanted into an enormous container and the roasting session is neatly wrapped up, we head outside for a quick Q&A.
How did you end up in the coffee business?
I started out in the hospitality industry – I bought a farm stall in Tokai called The Barnyard. At the time, I thought I made the best cappuccino in the country, but in retrospect, it was terrible, with the highest foam. My brother later got married in New Zealand and I discovered artisanal roasting there. I came back to South Africa and started applying the technique, but still didn't really get it.
Then I bought a guesthouse in Greyton called The Post House. No-one was able to deliver fresh coffee to me more frequently than once a month, so I bought a small one-kilo roaster and started roasting. I made a lot of mistakes, but I also learnt a lot. The rest, as they say, is history.
Did you have any mentors on your journey to becoming a “coffee guru”?
I went overseas frequently and worked with some of the best people in the coffee industry. I took advice from wherever I could find it. I also read every single thing about the subject I could lay my hands on until I was as good as I could possibly be. You never really stop learning, though. I don't know it all. Everything I know and believe about coffee today will change in ten years' time, because there'll be so much more information out there.
The coffee business seems quite competitive. What sets Truth apart from other coffee roasters in Cape Town?
Two things set us apart. Elegance and simplicity. A combination of the two makes us unique. There are a few very good roasters in South Africa today, one or two that I have extreme respect for. But we try to keep things simple.
How do you achieve this simplicity?
Previously, explaining artisanal roasting to the public would require getting very geeky and technical, making it all about how we made the coffee and where we found it. Truth is all about getting down to the simple elegance of the perfect cup of coffee and leaving all the other nonsense alone.
If you want to know more about the coffee, yes, we can tell you which farms our coffee beans came from, what variety of tree it grew on, and when it was harvested, but that's not what it's about for us. Come in and enjoy yourself, we're not there to make you feel awkward.
You have humorously named blends such as Resurrection, Vengeance and Donde's Chaos. Where do you source the beans for the different blends?
We try not to confuse people with the characteristics of the different beans, so we’ve created the blends.
The coffees come from all over the world: South America, Africa and Asia. We source the best. It's all about buying the best possible coffees, not what's more affordable, but the best.
You also have an organic blend on your menu. Are there any taste characteristics that set organic apart from non-organic beans?
We don't buy organic coffee for the sake of it. We like to choose coffees because they're good. If they happen to have organic certification, all the better. Organic coffee isn’t better; it just makes the consumer feel better.
Also, organic isn't always what you think it is. Coffee trees growing in the wild with absolutely no fertilizer or human intervention are not organic because they haven’t been planted. It’s much the same as truffles – you can’t get organic truffles because they aren’t cultivated. We have three EU-certified organic suppliers. But, that said, there are also many amazing coffees being grown by farmers in the Third World using organic processes, who can't afford certification.
You also sell a range of coffee equipment. Could you tell us a bit more about it?
We've realised that people need the equipment to make good coffee – you can't sell petrol if you don't have any cars. Again, we have a very simple selection and try and make it as easy as possible for customers. The best of each breed. We don't stock stuff for the sake of stocking it.
Finally, your personal philosophy is “coffee is a process not a destination”. What do you mean by this?
Great coffee isn't a finite thing. It's not something you can measure and put in a box. So, in that sense it's a process. We consider what we have some of the best available in the world, but it will be improved upon next year and the next. We'll carry on learning and we'll carry on making it better.
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As a parting gift, David gives me a bag of Truth's Resurrection Blend. The writing on the package promises to “resurrect even those who stupidly chose to drink the Kool-Aid”. It's almost teatime, but maybe today I'll give the whole coffee-break thing a try.
By Annette Klinger
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