Find good coffee in South Africa
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Enjoy coffee in South Africa - Johannesburg - Cape Town - Durban - Bloemfontein - Port Elizabeth - East London - Pretoria - Gauteng - Western Cape - Eastern Cape - Limpopo - Free State - North West - Northern Cape - KwaZulu-Natal - Mpumalanga
A selection of shops, restaurants and accommodation establishments who are committed to offering guests coffee of a high quality
Brewing coffee for home or commercial purposes
There are various methods of preparing a coffee and also a multitude of different coffee products - a list which is growing by the day as more and more people convert to good coffee.
Traditional espresso machines
Filter coffee or pour over systems
Automatic bean to cup systems
Extraction of dissolvable solids
The objective of any brewing system is to extract flavour from the ground beans by dissolving as much of the total dissolvable;le solids (TDS) available in the developed or roasted coffee bean. The first key ingredient is obviously a well roasted or fully developed bean.
One of the best methods of extracting the highest percentage of TDS is by using the traditional espresso machines. These are favoured by coffee shops throughout the world and remain the best option in the writers view. These are however expensive and require the attention of a trained and experienced barista. Expect to pay in excess of R 60 000 for a ready-to-operate system including a grinder and accessories.
The well known pour-over systems are recommended for filter coffee. These are less expensive and are often used by specialist shops in conjunction with a traditional espresso machine. These systems, and some larger filter brewing systems are popular in mass-demand style operations such as conference centres; large hotels and theatres where a large number of products need to be served in a short period of time.
Bean-to-cup machines have improved remarkably in recent years with the more well know makes coming very close to the extraction levels produced by the traditional espresso machines. The other advantage of a bean-to-cup machine is that they are fully programmable and any waiter or serving staff is able to serve good quality coffee at the push of a button without any specific training. If one factors in all the elements, the bean-to-cup option is less expensive than the traditional option.
As the famed saying goes, “you get what you pay for.” This certainly applies when it comes to coffee and coffee equipment. Let’s take bean-to-cup machines for example, these are engineering masterpieces if one considers the area they utilise or size, that the machine grinds; heats; brews; pours and in many cases even froths the milk and then cleans itself - wow!
These machines range in price from a cheap option available at the large appliance stores from around R 4000 to the very expensive and complex commercial options. Aside from speed and life span, the cheaper machines extract less TDS than the commercial ones.
If you want to serve good coffee, we recommend that you consult with a few specialist suppliers who will guide you through the many options available.
Coffee - how to prepare coffee - coffee machines - espresso machines