Search for the Great South African Cup of Coffee: Josephine Mill

by Fred Roed on 19/01/07 at 11:00 pm
8 comments

Newlands in summer.

Had a couple of meetings today. At 1pm I ended up at Caveau (otherwise known as Josephine Mill), coffee shop, restaurant, lunch bar and general all-round watering hole for Southern Suburbs executives. It’s directly opposite the Newlands rugby ground, and the parking attendant instructed me solemnly ‘Don’t get too drunk!’ as I walked towards the entrance. I’ve had 3 very ordinary cups of joe already today, so when this one arrived, a cappuccino, I was mildly surprised by the presentation of the cup. The foam made a perfect meniscus above the edge of the rim. A cocoa cross was sprinkled on the top and a small chocolate biscotti was perched delicately on the saucer. Nice.

I took a sip, and immediately the full taste and aroma of good coffee hit my senses. The texture was thick and smooth over my palate, without the metallic after-taste of cheap coffee. That’s what you want, especially on a rushed Friday afternoon, with much work to be done. Lovely stuff.

Location: Josephine Mill, 13 Boundary Rd, Newlands, Cape Town
Owner: Brendon Crew
Phone: 021 685 5140
Internet: no iBurst, no wireless. I connected through my Nokia 9300.
Plugpoints: yep, laptop was fully charged when I left.
Cappuccino price: R10

Meeting potential out of ten: 9 for green foliage, view of the river, and the awesome setting of the old-style water mill.
Coffee rating out of ten: 8 for good presentation, great texture, great flavour.

Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.

8 Responses to “Search for the Great South African Cup of Coffee: Josephine Mill”

Saberi

Jan 22nd, 2007

Great review. I discovered your website/ blog recently and am antertained and informed by all you content. I’m also a coffee addict and found a cappucino at Limno’s Bakery is in the upper echelons as far as quality is concerned. I’ll be visiting J Mill soon.

Saberi
Fred

Jan 22nd, 2007

Yip, yip, yip – Limnos is on my list to visit. Jon Hughes and I went there 2 years ago and we still talk about how good that coffee was.

Thanks for the feedback!
Dave Duarte

Jan 23rd, 2007

There’s a new place in Hudson Street, De Waterkant (Greenpoint) that has the best coffee experience I’ve yet had…. They are coffee importers (think big hessian sacksof coffee there) and use the restaurant as a tasting room. Let me know if you guys decide to check it out, cos it’s around the corner from my office.
Frank Zappa

Jan 23rd, 2007

All Fred does is drink coffee. If you want to get things done, sack him. The man is an unnecesary overhead and owes me a beer.
Fred

Jan 23rd, 2007

Dave: Nice one! We’ll check it out, and drop you a line when we do.
Zappa: That beer is going to delivered via hosepipe and funnel.
Joep

Jan 27th, 2007

Hi Fred,

Thanks for the positive comments! Wireless will be installed shortly.

Joep

Caveau at the Mill
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Search for the Great South African Cup of Coffee: Caveau Cape Town — Ideate – Small Business in South Africa

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[...] of our Ideate veterans will remember that I popped into Josephine Mill Caveau in Newlands a while back and gave it one of my best ratings so far. They have twice served me a superlative cuppa. Not [...]

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