Roasted in Cape Town… There’s a new name on the coffee scene!
Stepping into the warm coffee-scented air of Smak Coffee Co’s artisanal roastery in a side street of Paarden Eiland, it’s clear that this is a family business. Katia Scherf shows us around, her fiancé Michael Sullivan stands beside the traditional drum roaster monitoring the green beans as they richly roast to deep brown. Her brother Alessandro is just back from delivering beans to a host of independent coffeeshops they supply, and her dad Frank is on the phone to Italy, from where they import handcrafted coffee machines.
Building a new brand
Bringing the whole family together in the business started when they took over Uber Coffee from a relative, who ran it as a one-man, one-coffee-blend roastery with a list of loyal coffeeshop clients. Over the past two years, they have expanded their offering to four distinctive blends and recently re-branded to Smak Coffee Co.
“Smak means taste in Danish, Swedish, Polish (it’s smaak in Afrikaans), but it can also mean kiss,” says Katia. The coffee-bean-shaped splashes of colour on the new packets are lively, friendly, organic and cheerful – just what you’d like to be greeted with for your morning brew.
The flat white made with the Original blend is beautifully smooth. “Our mantra is a cup of coffee that tastes as good as it smells, and one that makes you want a second and third cup,” Katia says. The other options are the African, American and Italian blends and a Single Origin (which changes often due to limited availability of certain beans), plus a chemical-free decaf, each with recommendations for the brewing method they’re most suited for.
Shop for coffee
The Smak coffee bar in the lobby of their building serves a perfectly brewed cappuccino or espresso using the various blends. It’s mostly a pop-in spot for takeaways, with a few tables and couches. They also serve freshly made sandwiches and croissants, homemade cookies and granola, and sell bags of coffee.
Or swing by the roastery itself to geek out at the gleaming array of Italian coffee machines (Brugnetti, Capitani, Elektra, Obel… and the gas-fuelled load shedding-proof Magister) and shop for the range of coffees, chai and decadent hot chocolates and slabs (made for them by Cocoafair).
A one-stop coffee-shop supplier
Smak offers a comprehensive service to coffeeshops, farm stalls and restaurants: supplying and maintaining the machines and grinders, training baristas, and supplying not just coffee but teas, red espresso, honey, chocolate, cups, lids and all the paraphernalia. At each delivery they taste-test the coffee to check that everything is running smoothly.
“Bitterness in a coffee doesn’t come from the bean, or beans roasted too dark. It comes from how it’s been brewed and extracted,” says Michael. So they have precise recommendations for timing, water and coffee quantities, the cleanliness of the machine and the frothing of the milk, so that the natural sweetness of the roasted bean isn’t lost in translation.
Earth-friendly coffee capsules
The wave of Nespresso machines (and lookalikes) and demand for capsules hasn’t abated. To stay true to their eco-friendly ethos, Smak has sourced a new compostable capsule from Italy. In the room dedicated to the capsule-filling process, they showed us nifty four-packs of their capsule blends (for hospitality clients only), and reusable hessian bags (upcycled from their unending stash of coffee bean sacks) that they fill by the hundred.
As it says on the colourful new Smak packaging, coffee is a singular ritual that unites us all… More than coffee it’s a culture… And for the Scherf family, sharing their love for the cherished bean is a fulfilling way of life.
Good to know You can shop online at smakcoffeeco.com. Use the code INSIDE GUIDE to get a 15% discount on your first order until 31 December 2024.
Opening times Monday – Friday, 8am – 4.30pm
Contact 021 569 9394, hello@smakcoffeeco.com, @smakcoffeeco
Where to find it Inospace Island Works, 18-22 Cumberland Road, Paarden Eiland, Cape Town
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