Truth Coffee Roasting was co-founded by Andrzej Janik and David Donde, “pioneers” of specialty coffee in Cape Town. Its café and roastery share a three-storey Victorian building from 1898 in the city centre, which Truth acquired in 2012 and stripped of its aluminium shopfronts, dropped ceilings and lino floors. The steampunk concept came from the designer Haldane Martin, who designed the interior and won a Gold Loerie Award for it. Steel shopfronts, a coffee contraption built by Chris Jones and steampunk uniforms from the Little Hattery are part of the same design.

The roaster’s line is “Coffee. Roasted. Properly.” Most of the range is blends, from dark and intense to smooth and balanced, built for a full flavour, alongside single origins and a decaf, and the coffee is also sold as capsules for home machines. Truth profile-roasts its coffees and its team cups and evaluates every roasted batch.

Truth supplies businesses of every size, from offices to restaurants and coffee shops, through a Bean, Machine, Team blueprint that covers the coffee, the equipment and the people behind the bar. Its wholesale office is in Muizenberg, and its Barista Academy trains new baristas.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Truth Coffee Roasting