Slow Coffee from the Garden Route
Pause has been roasting in George since 2016, and the name is the entire brief: slow down and savour every sip. It is a Garden Route roastery rather than a big-city operation, shipping nationwide, so most people meet Pause through the post or on a guest-house breakfast table long before they ever see the roaster. Ethical sourcing is the whole pitch, built around three house blends.
I signed up to their subscription as part of working through the South African roasters that make ordering online easy. Full tasting notes will land here once the beans arrive — this is the honest amateur's profile, and I would rather tell you what I have actually experienced than pad it out.
Inside Pause
Photographs from Pause Coffee's own catalogue — the George roastery, the beans, and the calm, unhurried look that runs through everything they put out.
Roasting on the Garden Route
Slow down and savour the cup
How to buy Pause coffee
Pause is set up to sell online first. The roastery in George Industria is a working unit and collection point rather than a sit-down café, so for most of the country the website is the front door.
The monthly subscription
Starts from R240 a month and drops to about R216 once you set it to recurring — a standing 10% off. The minimum is two bags and it renews monthly, so it suits a two-cup-a-day household more than an occasional drinker.
Single bags online
pausecoffee.co.za sells the range bag by bag if a subscription is a bigger commitment than you want. Free shipping kicks in on orders over R600, which is roughly where a few bags together will land you.
At the George roastery
Unit 9, George Park, on the corner of Binne and Aanloop Streets in George Industria. Open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm — handy if you are on a Garden Route trip and want to collect rather than post.
Through a guest house or restaurant
Pause supplies restaurants, shops and guest houses nationwide, so there is a fair chance the good cup you had on holiday somewhere along the coast was theirs. Worth asking your host who roasts their beans.
One honest snag from signing up: the checkout was clean and easy — one of the more user-friendly of the roasters I tried — but the payment portal took a moment to get going. Give it a beat before you assume the order failed and try again, or you may end up paying twice.
Brewing Pause at home
I have not brewed a Pause bag yet, so I am not going to invent tasting notes for you — those will go here the moment the subscription lands. What I can say is that the whole brand is built around unhurried coffee, which is a good reminder that most home-brewing mistakes come from rushing.
Whatever a roaster sends, the fundamentals are the same: fresh beans, a grinder you can adjust, and a scale. Get those three right and a mindful, slow cup looks after itself.
- Give a new bag a few days to rest after the roast date before you judge it — freshly roasted coffee is still off-gassing and can taste flat or gassy.
- Weigh your dose and your water. A cheap kitchen scale removes more guesswork than any expensive gadget.
- Start with a middle-of-the-road grind and adjust one variable at a time: too sour means grind finer, too bitter means grind coarser.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Pause Coffee?
Pause roasts from Unit 9, George Park, on the corner of Binne and Aanloop Streets in George Industria, on the Garden Route in the Western Cape. It is a roastery and collection point rather than a sit-down café, open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm.
When was Pause Coffee founded?
Pause has been roasting since 2016. The name is the whole philosophy — the brand is built around slowing down and savouring the cup rather than chasing the next hit of caffeine.
How does the Pause Coffee subscription work?
The subscription starts from R240 a month and drops to about R216 a month once you set it to recurring, which is a standing 10% off. The minimum is two bags and it renews monthly. Free shipping kicks in on orders over R600.
Does Pause Coffee ship nationwide?
Yes. Pause ships across South Africa and supplies restaurants, shops and guest houses nationwide on the wholesale side, so a Garden Route roaster is well within reach wherever you are in the country.
Is the Pause Coffee website easy to order from?
Signing up was one of the more straightforward of the roaster subscriptions I tried — the site is clean and the flow is clear. The one snag was the payment portal, which took a moment to get going, so give it a beat before assuming anything went wrong.
Where to Find Them
Unit 9, George Park, Cnr Binne & Aanloop St, George Industria, George, 6529
Mon–Fri 9am–5pm · Sat–Sun closed
If you like this roaster, read these next
Apothecary Coffee Co
Cape Town
The other roaster I signed up to this round — fruit-forward single origins and the slickest coffee-finder site of the bunch.
Bean There Coffee Company
Johannesburg
A straightforward, ethical subscription if you want fresh single origins without a big learning curve.
Bluebird Coffee Roastery
Howick, KZN
Another small-town roaster that sells subscription-first — useful to compare against Pause's approach.
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.
What the Google listing says
Read off Pause Coffee’s own Google Maps listing in August 2026. These are Google’s figures and Google’s labels, not mine — useful for working out when to go and what to expect, but check before you drive.
Google files it under Coffee roastery — I list it as Roaster.
Listed features(4)
- Accessibility and facilities
- Wheelchair accessible parking lot
- Payment
- Credit cards · Debit cards · NFC mobile payments
Google’s star counts stay Google’s. They are shown here as a distribution only — I do not fold them into my own score, I do not republish review text, and none of it goes into this page’s structured data.