Durban’s Humble Coffee was conceived as a roastery by a wee Scot from Edinburgh. Ideas percolated. Then culinary magic happened, including a café of the year award. Chalk it up to woman power?
When Amy Gardiner moved into the ground floor of a factory-type location in an industrial neighbourhood on the wrong side of the culinary track three years ago, it was to have a place to roast coffee and sell it from. “I never intended it to be a café. I moved here mainly because, with coffee-roasting, you need things like a loading bay. For big deliveries of, like, 300 kilos of coffee, you don’t want to have to lug it up a bunch of stairs.”
Gardiner is from Edinburgh, Scotland. And let it be said right at the start, she has a passion for cooking and recipe development. Stress-baking is her tonic. She has “always” wanted her own business, started working her first café job at age 13 and has long been “obsessed” with hospitality. This year her cafe was named best in South Africa by Coffee Magazine.
