📖 First-hand story — Read the full Home of the Bean profile →
The Short Version
Leroy Kgopa and Itumeleng Manamela — both diagnostic radiographers by training — founded Home of the Bean in 2017 out of a converted VW Kombi. Today it's a multi-site operation with a flagship café at Arts on Main in Maboneng, a roastery at Victoria Yards, and coffee stations at galleries and corporate offices across Johannesburg.
We bumped into the team at the Fabiani Café pop-up in Sandton City, where they were collaborating with Cedar Coffee and the SOZO Foundation on the charity activation.
The Origin Story
The journey started with the Kofi Kombi — a mobile coffee service that parked wherever the people were. In 2019, a small courtyard café opened at The Cosmopolitan in Maboneng. By 2021, they'd moved into the current Arts on Main premises, and the roastery followed at Victoria Yards.
Both founders are University of Johannesburg graduates who met in 2011 and transitioned from the medical field to specialty coffee out of genuine passion. Community education — teaching customers about origins, brewing methods, and fair-trade practices — has been central from day one.
The Arts on Main café — warm industrial aesthetics in the heart of Maboneng
Current Coffee Offering
Medium roast only — rotated every 2–3 months. Roasted every other week at Victoria Yards.
| Coffee | Origin | Type |
|---|---|---|
| House Blend | Kenya × Costa Rica | Rotating house blend |
| Burundi | Burundi | Single origin |
| Kenya | Kenya | Single origin |
| Uganda | Uganda | Single origin |
| Nicaragua | Nicaragua | Single origin |
| Costa Rica | Costa Rica | Single origin |
Online store coming soon. Current origins as of July 2026.
Awards & Recognition
Café of the Year
Coffee Magazine Awards · 2025
2nd Place Overall
A Shot in the Dark · 2025
2nd Place — Milk-Based Coffee
A Shot in the Dark · 2025
3rd Place — Black Coffee
A Shot in the Dark · 2025
Victoria Yards — The Roastery
Victoria Yards — Johannesburg's creative precinct where the Home of the Bean roastery lives
The roastery at Victoria Yards is a quieter, more intimate space — perfect for coffee cuppings and exploring single origins. If the Maboneng flagship is the social hub, Victoria Yards is the zen retreat.
Where to Find Them
Arts on Main (Flagship)
264 Fox Street, Maboneng, Johannesburg
Lively, great for people-watching
Victoria Yards (Roastery)
Victoria Yards, Johannesburg
Zen, quiet — perfect for cuppings
Berman Contemporary
Near Hyde Park, Johannesburg
Art gallery + cortado
Baker McKenzie
Rosebank & Jan Smuts
Corporate canteen supply
How to buy Home of the Bean coffee
This is a café-first business rather than a mail-order one, which changes how you buy from them. At the time of writing the online store is still listed as coming soon, so the realistic routes are all in person and all in Johannesburg.
Arts on Main, Maboneng
The flagship at 264 Fox Street is the busiest and the most social of the sites. It is the right stop if you want the café experience — people-watching included — rather than a quiet cupping.
The Victoria Yards roastery
Roasting happens here every other week, and it is the quieter room of the two. If you want to buy beans and actually talk about them, this is the address to aim for.
Berman Contemporary, near Hyde Park
A coffee station inside an art gallery. Not a bean-buying trip, but a genuinely pleasant way to taste the roast before you commit to a bag.
Online — not yet
The store is announced but not live as of July 2026. If you are outside Gauteng, the honest answer today is that you need someone in Joburg to collect for you, or you wait.
I met the team at the Fabiani Café pop-up in Sandton City rather than at either of their own sites, so treat the site-by-site detail here as reported rather than personally walked. Hours and stock at multi-site operations change; check their Instagram before you drive across town.
Brewing Home of the Bean at home
Home of the Bean roast medium only, and rotate the origins every two to three months. For home brewing that is genuinely good news. Medium roast is the most forgiving territory for the kind of kit most South Africans actually own — a mid-range grinder, a pressurised basket, a kettle without temperature control.
On my Breville Barista Express, a medium-roast Kenya or Costa Rica sits comfortably in the middle of the grind dial rather than at the extremes, which means you can dial it in without burning through half the bag. That is worth something when a bag costs what specialty costs in Rands.
Because the roster rotates seasonally, do not treat last quarter’s settings as gospel. A Burundi and a Nicaragua will not behave identically even at the same roast level, and the two or three months between rotations is long enough to forget what you changed.
- Ask what was roasted most recently at Victoria Yards — roasting runs every other week, so the freshest bag is a real question with a real answer.
- Medium roast handles milk well, so this is a sensible roaster to buy from if your household mostly drinks flat whites.
- Write the grind setting on the bag in pen. With a rotating single-origin lineup you will need it again in three months.
- If you only ever brew filter, ask for the single origin rather than the house blend — the blend is built with milk drinks in mind.
Working through a new bag? The dial-in guide walks through sour, bitter and channelling shots step by step, and the grind size guide gives micron values for 20+ grinders sold in South Africa.
If you like this roaster, read these next
Tribe Coffee
Johannesburg & Cape Town
The bigger Joburg operation — a useful contrast in what scale does to a roast profile.
Bean There Coffee
Johannesburg
Also Joburg, also community-minded, but built entirely around direct African sourcing.
Cedar Coffee Roasters
Cape Town
The roaster Home of the Bean collaborated with on the Fabiani pop-up and the SOZO Foundation activation.
Every roaster we have profiled sits in the South African roaster directory, and the ones with a public café are pinned on the coffee map.
Source
We met the Home of the Bean team at the Fabiani Café pop-up, Sandton City, 8 July 2026. This page also draws on Coffee Magazine SA features, In Your Pocket Joburg, IOL Business Report profiles, and the roastery's Instagram. Photo of the team by Bibi Burness.