The story begins in a galaxy not so very far away… in a small corner on a planet that is filled with blue, green and so many beautiful sunrises and tastes to be explored. In 2014 master Wayne, his beautiful wife Ilene and their very promising padawan, Maxine began a small coffee bar where they started selling delicious coffee at markets. A company of three became a fellowship of five when the team was joined by the brilliant mind of Fred (just so know, his body and spirit also joined…. The five set out to discover the heart of coffee. What they have discovered so far is at the heart of the heart of the coffee bean lies the beautiful bean, called the human bean. In March 2015 they started a small take away coffee counter, Crema, inside a printing shop called Office4U, in the central part of Jeffrey’s Bay. Here they discovered that this would be an ever learning experience and that the growing part will be an integral part of the joy of serving a great cup of coffee. Friends also became customers and customers became friends. And the fellowship grew into a family. Over these two years a few spectacular baristas, all trained by the master himself, joined the family. Rueben the vibrant, Martin, the gentle and Dyallan, the multi talented, all came for a season and left again on new adventures. At the end of 2015, the family was joined, by the valiant Heinrich (who later became family in more ways than one by marrying the lovely Maxine). Annique, the creative excellent, joined the family in the beginning of 2016, just before Wayne and Ilene brought their first daughter, dancing Tehila, into the world. Another addition to the family came in the middle of 2015 and stayed in a small room in Fred’s garage: a little roaster, all the way from China. They started to roast their own coffee, which was part of the idea of starting a coffee shop: so they could display the coffee bean, roasted by themselves and loving and getting to know the people on the other side of coffee: the growing and production side. They named this new heart chamber Routed Roasters. One of their new friends, Peter from across the road, one day suggested they rent his shop, which at that time was an art gallery. They were dreaming about having their own little space where they could also host the Chinese child and so at the end of 2016 they started to move into their new space, excited about the next chapter ahead. In middle January 2017 we opened shop and have really learnt the beautiful value of starting small, growing tall. We are steadily growing and so much joy is found in celebrating small victories and keeping it simple. The newest addition to the family is daring Dawn who arrived on our doorstep in the beginning of April 2017. She will surely take us on many adventures and we are so excited to call her ours. Dawn is the extension of our market-family. She is a 1969 Volkswagen Kombi converted into a coffee truck (there is also space for a hammock and surfboards…road tripping to the other side of the galaxy is inevitable). For her maiden voyage we took her to Nature’s Valley where we celebrated Heinrich and Maxine’s wedding. Our story is still unfolding as we learn and grow and adventure together in life, love, space, gravity, light, the Deep and also coffee. This is our story (well maybe just some of it) this is First light, where the Heart of coffee is people.
