This is what hospitality should be in specialty coffee

Rosetta Roastery delivers a masterclass

The most honest place to start this piece is with Taylor Swift. Yes, that Taylor Swift. Is there another?

The kind of devotion she inspires from her fans is remarkable. Inspirational even. If she asked them to drown kittens, there is no doubt in my mind the SPCA would have its hands full.

It’s the kind of devotion I know well. Because when it comes to Rosetta Roastery, I am full Swiftie for what Jono Le Feuvre, Rob Cowles and Jeff van Aswegen started back in 2010.

The sensible thing

The new HQ in Claremont, Cape Town, feels calm in a way that made me immediately aware of how chaotic the rest of my life is. It doesn't perform. It simply settles you.

I took a seat and did the sensible thing. I asked the barista what he recommended. Instead of repeating a script, Lwando asked what I liked. Tastes. Flavors.

And then he did something I cannot remember ever happening in a specialty coffee shop. He listened. With the kind of attention that made me slow down my answer.

He even paused to think.

When he returned with a washed Ethiopian, it tasted so right that I wanted to rest my hand gently on his shoulder and say: “You had me at hello.” It was not the doubt of the appropriateness of the phrase that made me stop short of uttering it. It was that he looked so young.

I never mentioned to this child that I preferred washed coffees. Yet he still found the exact place my palate wanted to land.

You had me at hello

A small card explained that the coffee came from small-scale farmers in Banko Gotiti in Gedeb, Ethiopia. I read it with interest. Trying to memorise the details so that I could impress my coffee snob friends later.

As I write this, I have already forgotten most of what was on that card. You know what I did not forget though? A barista who made a choice on my behalf because he actually listened.

Like a tattoo out of eyesight

Eventually hunger arrived. I ordered the smoked trout on dark seeded rye. Because it felt like the kind of thing the space demanded of me.

The menu promised horseradish cream cheese, cucumber and red onion. As I said the words out loud, I was already preparing myself to pretend to enjoy it. The way I pretend to enjoy geshas.

Turns out I didn’t need to pretend.

The trout had a delicate saltiness. The horseradish cream cheese kept every bite interesting. The cucumber broke through with a crisp snap. The rye was a perfect foundation.

It tasted like a dish made by someone who understands flavour but sees no need to show off. Like a tattoo out of eyesight.

You complete me

The baristas at Rosetta carry themselves with the ease of people who know their craft. And get paid above the minimum wage.

Lwando spent a fair amount of time showing me how to get more from a Hario Switch. Because he noticed my interest.

He spoke like someone who knew from experience what he was talking about. But he also spoke casually. As if this kind of conversation is part of the day rather than an event. There was no performance in it.

Like magic

Good service often comes down to rhythm. Rosetta has found a rhythm that feels natural. I was left alone long enough to doomscroll. Yet right when I looked up, someone appeared.

Not urgently. Intuitively.

The cinnamon bun

The cinnamon bun was fine. Pleasant enough. Nothing that will haunt my memory. The way Taylor Swift’s music does.

Let’s put it this way. Whoever baked it does not roast coffee like Shannen MacKay.

When the retail shelf does what every café hopes for

Before leaving, I wandered past the retail shelf and felt the tug of wanting the experience to continue at home.

I bought two bags of coffee and a box of drip bags. Even now, as I write this, I am looking forward to brewing them.

Every coffee business hopes for this sequence. Or at least every coffee business should. You enter for one cup. You stay for lunch. You add something sweet. And you exit with coffee for later.

Because the place earned your trust.

When a café reminds you what the industry forgets

Rosetta’s new HQ succeeds because it does the ordinary things unusually well.

No theatrics. No pretending. No inflated sense of who they are. The coffee is good. The food is thoughtful. The baristas pay attention. And the whole place feels like it was built by people who respect customers enough not to make anything about themselves.

Which is rare in specialty coffee.