LINEAGE Hillcrest was crowned the Battle of the Beans 2025 Top Coffee Shop in KZN at an awards ceremony last Friday (January 30) at the Grand White in Durban.

Second was Durban North’s Now Coffee, and Boston Brew, Morningside was third.

The event, which recognised KZN’s coffee royalty during a fun-filled and colourful evening overlooking the port of Durban, also rewarded the province’s best barista – Humble Coffee’s Portia Sibiya, closely followed by Joe Dlamini from Now Coffee, Glenashley.

The trophy for KZN’s most popular coffee shop – based on a public vote that ran between September 2025 and January 2026 – was Crane Flower Coffee in Kloof.

The year-long competition, supported by headline sponsor Selati Sugar, which culminated in the presentation of awards to 21 finalists across seven districts, saw a team of 27 judges visiting more than 330 coffee shops incognito.

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They scored not only the cappuccinos and espressos that were served but also the entire coffee experience. After two rounds, the judges whittled the list down to three regional finalists per area. Those finalists then competed for the ultimate titles.

The Battle of the Beans has become an annual highlight on KZN’s coffee calendar with the 2026 competition due to begin shortly.

The competition was created by an NPO known as the Coffee Colab to recognise the stalwarts of coffee culture in KZN, as well as set a benchmark for newcomers to this important segment of the hospitality industry.

Coffee entrepreneurship was a key topic throughout the awards ceremony with keynote speaker Dr Marsha Gabriel, South African Honorary Consul to Ethiopia, which is one of the world’s top coffee producers, not only complimenting independent coffee shop owners for their passion and fortitude, but suggesting that the coffee industry has significant room to expand in KZN.

Markets reshape coffee

“We should not just sell coffee. We should build markets, empower entrepreneurs and reshape how African coffee is consumed at street level, every day,” she said.

Craig Charity, owner of winning coffee shop Lineage Hillcrest, which was also the first runner-up in 2024, has been at the forefront of coffee roasting and making in KZN for over a decade.

He sees coffee as being a “vehicle to uplift people in the industry and to change customers’ lives by closing the void between different communities in South Africa.”

The Battle of the Beans competition has evolved significantly in just a year with the 250 independently owned coffee shops judged in 2024 growing to over 330 during 2025. In addition, having recognised another important phenomenon, Coffee To-Go, a new category was added to the 2025 competition.

This was won by Coffie’kie in Uvongo.

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