Home Brew

OPERATING OUT OF THE GARAGE OF HIS MOTHER’S HOME IN KHAYELITSHA, SIKELELA IS PROOF THAT IF YOU BREW IT, THEY WILL COME

- KIERAN LEGG

All he had was a garage, a coffee machine and an unflinching certainty it was all going to work out. “Seriously, I didn’t even have a name yet, no name at all,” says Sikelela Dibela, laughing. Those early days, when Sikis Koffee Kafe was an unbaptised pipedream, a coffee shop with no identity in a township where people were sceptical of gourmet brews, were the hardest. But instead of giving up, Sikelela started a conversation.

UNFILTERED

When Sikelela talks about coffee, it’s clear he’s a convert. He analyses the grind, describing how cold weather shrinks the beans and how you have to load up the hopper and keep making adjustments to brew the perfect cup. It’s part science, part art. He’s a disciple of the third wave of coffee, a man dedicated to his craft. But, like most living in Khayelitsha, growing up, coffee was just a means to an end.

“I was drinking instant,” he says. “We all drink instant coffee. Even when I was working at the café, I was still knocking back instant.” The only ritual he had around coffee was sipping an instant brew from a saucer at his grandmother’s house in the Eastern Cape. “That was about how much I thought about coffee back then,” he adds.

Living in Khayelitsha’s Site C, Sikelela struggled in school. He eventually dropped out in Grade 9 and picked up odd jobs in the area. In 2006, he started working part time at vida e caffé. While the senior staff worked the coffee machines up front, Sikelela was stuck washing dishes.

“I watched them making coffee, and I knew I wanted to be up there,” he says.