No, I'm not talking about the chicken you pop on the braai.
One of the things I really miss about Cape Town, not having been there in over a year, besides the cold Atlantic Ocean, beautiful mountains, amazing seafood, the vibe, walking in town, good wine drunk on a wine farm etc etc etc etc (I could go on) is Deluxe coffee.
Deluxe Coffeeworks in Church Street is a small, unassuming shop that you’ll miss if you walk past too quickly (we did on or first visit). It’s got a great retro vibe and is the kind of place you could sit for hours and watch the passing parade, either on their outdoor bench or in an elevated seat in the window if the weather is foul.
When we visited over a year ago, we bought two bags of beans, Guatemala and Kenya, which have been chilling in my freezer since last June, as I was pregnant and off caffeine. Yesterday I bought myself a one person Bodum plunger and can now indulge every morning.
Deluxe sell all their wet coffee to take away, or have on the premises in 70’s style chunky brown cups. They also roast their own beans to sell to the public. If you are lucky enough to live in Cape Town (and yes, you know you are lucky, and let everyone else know it too, don't you...) you can also have Deluxe coffee at one of the swanky stockists listed on their website like Superette, Field Office or Skinny Legs & All.
One of the very special things about Deluxe is that they must be one of the few coffee shops in SA selling a flat white. I’d only recently read about the flat white coffee craze, originally an Australasian invention, that’s sweeping the UK in an article in the FT Weekend. Small independent coffee shops in London have been serving it and now coffee monoliths Starbucks and Costa have caught onto the trend.
So what’s a flat white? The following comes from Matthew Kilgour’s article This is real coffee in the 8 May 2010 FT Weekend and describes it best:
A flat white, or “flattie”, is an espresso-based coffee served in a small – usually 6-10oz – cup with less milk and froth than either a cappuccino or a latte. The base is a double shot of espresso topped with heated (not steamed) full-fat milk, carefully poured to create a sweet and velvety short coffee: full-fat milk adds a natural sweetness, with texturised milk taking the place of frothy cappuccino foam.
The result is a lovely creamy cup of coffee that still holds the true flavour of the espresso. The Deluxe Coffeeworks site has a great illustration (also at the top of this post) showing the different ratios of espresso to water to milk for espresso, cappuccino and a flat white.
So now you know. And if you are in Cape Town soon, pop in. And please let me know, as I'm going to be needing some more beans any day now. Or, better yet, take me with you!
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