We’ve got another confession, the AfricanSurfer crew are complete coffee junkies. Thanks to spending a large part of our working years whiling away the hours at the Coffee Bean on main or the Monmouth in Borough market – we’re a sucker for good ground beans in some hot water, preferably with a touch of milk.

One of the highlights of this trip is that we’ve passed through some of the more famous coffee-growing nations in West Africa and experienced some interesting coffee culture, such as a round that we ordered from a roadside stall in central Cameroon. Made with beans from the surrounding hills, served black with a generous squeeze of fresh lime… an acquired taste, we’re guessing!

Stone was surprised to be offered a heavy squeeze of LIME in his black coffee at a roadside stall in central Cameroon (circa Aug 2007)

Either way we’re looking forward to getting back to South Africa as soon as possible so we can head straight for Plettenberg Bay and the DOUBLESHOT COFFEEBAR. The concept has been developed by two Lufthansa flight attendants who have basically spent their last five years travelling the world (for work) visiting the greatest coffeeshops in the world from Canada to Addis Ababa. Now they’ve taken their favourite things from each of these shops and put it into the DOUBLESHOT where you can get a latte (complete with foam-art) made with espresso compressed from their vintage ‘Kees van der Western’ idrocompressor machine.

The DOUBLESHOT in Plett – a small upgrade from the roadside coffee stall in Central Africa…

The beast…

It looks worth visiting just to get a photo with this beast! In fact, if you go be sure to get a photo and send it to us.

To top it all off, the proprietors enlisted the AfricanSurfer crew to source them a very specific Bogolan (mud cloth) from Djenne, an ancient village in Mali famous for making these very unique and labour-intensive tissues. We did, and this cloth now hangs on the wall in the DOUBLESHOT. Go there, touch it, smell it… feel the AfricanSurfer vibe.

AfricanSurfer crew on assignment hunting for Bogolan cloth in Djenne, Mali (circa Nov 2007)

It’s in the Checkers complex, close to the Checkers entrance. Mention that you heard about DOUBLESHOT in this AfricanSurfer post and the Karins’ will hook you your second coffee on the house!

AfricanSurfer Stone… another good-looking machine! (pic:Devon Sigman)