Mastertons Coffee & Tea

Idrove down from Johannesburg for this. A thousand kilometres south, a list in my head of fifty coffee shops I want to see before I die, and a plan to finally stop reading about Mastertons and walk through its doors. Number eleven on that list. The first one I'm actually writing up. And, as it turns out, the oldest of the whole lot.

Mastertons sits on Main Road in Walmer — in the city the maps call Port Elizabeth, officially Gqeberha, and everyone here just calls home. The brass perpetual calendar on the shelf read FRIDAY 19 JUNE the morning I arrived, two days short of Father's Day, which (as you'll see) turned out to be perfect timing.

I'll be straight with you: I walked in and turned into a child. Wall-to-wall bags, a century of roasting equipment lined up like trophies, a Probat hissing away behind glass. “Kids in a candy shop” doesn't quite cover it — everything a coffee lover could wish for, under one roof.

Ronald John Masterton — “Jock” to everyone, because of course a Scotsman named Ronald gets called Jock — opened the doors in 1924. That makes Mastertons the oldest operating coffee roastery in the country: a full century, and counting. The little kilted figure stamped on every bag is him, more or less — R.J. Masterton, 1897 to 1980, still keeping watch over the shop.

The business has passed down three generations, and you can taste each one (more on that in a minute). The original store was at 114 Russell Road — you'll spot the old hand-painted sign in the mural below, phone number “24044” and all. Today it's a boutique roastery on Walmer's Main Road, but the soul hasn't shifted an inch.

Behind a big plate-glass window, the roasting still happens by hand on a vintage Probat, with an even older UNO roaster parked alongside like a retired racehorse. Above the retail shelves sits a collection of antique grinders, brass pots and copper kettles that wouldn't look out of place in a museum. This is heritage you can smell.

Here's where it gets fun for a coffee nerd. The family's story is told in four bags, and they line up almost like a typed timeline — one roaster, one blend, one generation at a time.

And then, because I'd timed my visit two days before Father's Day, the seasonal Happy Father's Day blend was out: all-African beans, aromatic and fruity, with a smoothness that never tips into harshness. It isn't always around. If you see it, grab it. Beyond these, the full blends list reads like a novel — Out of Africa, Sweet Italian, Alaskan Snow Goose, Childhood Memories — forty-odd blends, each with its own backstory.

One bag earns a special mention. Chipembere — “roasted for a cause” — is an all-African medium-to-dark blend, and five rand from every bag goes to the Chipembere Rhino Foundation (chipembere is the Shona word for rhino). Good coffee doing a little good: easy to get behind.

On ethics — and I always ask — the owner handles all the green-bean buying himself, and I was told he's diligent about fair-trade sourcing and keeping child labour out of the supply chain. For a hundred-year-old family roaster, that hands-on, owner-led approach is exactly what you want to hear.

If the blends are the heart, the single-origin wall is the playground. Mastertons stocks lots from Colombia, Brazil, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Honduras, Nicaragua, Indonesia, Burundi, Uganda — and more. I went a little overboard. What came home with me:

Nicaragua — classic Central American chocolate, smooth, with a sweet cocoa finish that lingers. An easy yes.
Uganda — dark-fruited and thick-bodied, pulls a beautiful crema; equally happy in a cappuccino or a pour-over.
Guatemala — more chocolate, and the staff favourite. Sold.

A couple I left on the shelf, and I'll tell you why, because taste is personal: Rwanda's bright citrus-and-floral acidity has never been my thing, and Tanzania carries a similar berry tang (a shade gentler than the Rwandan). If you love a lively, fruity cup, those two are made for you — they're just not what I reach for. I'm still chasing a jam-like Ethiopian I had once and have never quite replicated. The hunt continues.

Then Cabo behind the bar offered to pull me a shot, and I wasn't about to say no. He ran the Father's Day blend — and for the espresso geeks, here are the numbers.

A hair under his target, but the striping on the crema said it all: even extraction, properly dialled. The mouthfeel was gorgeous — all-African beans through a fine grind and a tight ninety-degree pull, rich without being heavy.

The retail grinders are a pair of Swiss Dittings, pre-marked for every method — French press, espresso, and the “metal filter” setting that's your friend for pour-over. (I asked what one costs. Let's just say it's the price of a very nice second-hand car.) And the brew-kit shelves are dangerous: Hario, Chemex, AeroPress, Bodum, Bialetti, Jura. If you brew it, they sell it. Budget accordingly.

None of this lands without the people, and Mastertons has them. Nandi — a qualified barista currently running the floor — walked me through the whole range, blend by blend, with the patience of someone who genuinely loves the subject. (She also, gently, corrected my guess of 1925. It's 1924, thank you.) Between her and Cabo, the hosting alone is half the reason this place earns a spot on the fifty.

Without question. Mastertons is heritage, theatre, education and properly good coffee all at once — and it's so entrenched in this city that it has its own suite at the stadium and a blend named for the Bay. For most visitors and coffee pilgrims passing through Nelson Mandela Bay, it's the stop. A joyous first feature for the fifty. I'll be back.