A Hidden Gourmet Coffee Shop in the Oriental Plaza

Hidden at the back of a homeware shop, which is hidden in a dimly lit corridor deep inside the Oriental Plaza, you’ll find Joburg’s most talented self-taught barista. His name is Ahmed Angamia and he’s a third-generation shop owner — a father of 4 and a grandfather of 9.

Ahmed Angamia serves a cappuccino inside his shop, Angamia’s Homeware, in the Oriental Plaza.

Long before he became a barista, Uncle Ahmed was the proprietor of Angamia’s Homeware — like his parents before him and his grandmother before them. He was born on 14th Avenue, the legendary shopping district in Fietas, and worked in his family’s store there until the apartheid government forcibly removed all of Fietas’ Indian-owned businesses to the Oriental Plaza in Fordsburg in the 1970s.

Angamia’s is in a corridor just off the Plaza’s Grand Bazarre.

This book cover shows the original Angamia’s shop in Fietas. Like almost all of the shops in Fietas, it was demolished under apartheid’s Group Areas Act.

Somewhere along the line, Uncle Ahmed got interested in coffee (“It’s not a business — it’s a hobby,” he says) and bought an espresso machine and a small roasting machine for the shop. He began experimenting with beans (always Fair Trade), creating blends from different parts of Africa and the world. And he put together a special blend of spices — cardamom, saffron, and a few others — to brew his very own spicy masala coffee.

You can’t quite see the coffee corner from the entrance of the shop. But it’s there, toward the back where the customer is standing.

A glimpse of the coffee corner, which has space for one or two customers to sit. Most people order their coffees as takeaways.

The original coffee roasting machine.

The menu. I can’t wait to go back to try all of these.

The magical masala spice mix.

To make a masala coffee, Uncle Ahmed sprinkles a spoonful of spices in with the coffee grounds before brewing.

My masala coffee, with milk and a dash of sugar. It was SO GOOD. The spicy flavor is subtle, but really sets this drink apart from a regular cappuccino.

Uncle Ahmed now owns a much larger coffee roaster, which he keeps at his home in Mayfair West, and he’s always tinkering with new blends. His wife, Fatima, who runs Angamia’s with Ahmed, is his most enthusiastic taster.

Uncle Ahmed also sells his beans. I bought a bag of the house blend and I’m excited to try it out at home.

Although I haven’t done so yet, Angamia’s looks like a fantastic place to shop for dishes, pots and pans, small kitchen appliances, and other homewares. Apparently they also sell hand-made knives and you can bring in your own knives to be sharpened.

So pretty!

I go to the Oriental Plaza frequently (I even hosted an Instameet there once) and I’ve walked past the corridor where Angamia’s is at least 50 times over the years. But I never knew about Uncle Ahmed’s coffee until last month, when the Gimba Express made an Instagram post about it. Angamia’s has already been covered extensively in food vlogging circles (it was featured by Nick Hamman and also on the world-famous Migrationology blog), so I’m not pretending to deliver any breaking news here.

But Angamia’s is too special not to share, even belatedly. Visiting the shop and chatting with Ahmed and Fatima, who have been married for 47 years and are incredibly kind and charming, put me in a super good mood — a very rare occurrence for me in January 2026. I wanted to sit there for the entire day, listening to Uncle Ahmed tell stories, buying crockery, and sampling every coffee on the menu. I can’t recommend a visit to Angamia’s highly enough.

Thanks to these two legends for melting my ice-cold heart yesterday.

Angamia’s is in Shop c89 in the Oriental Plaza. Ahmed and Fatima’s son, Naeem, runs a second location at Shop 3 35 on Greenhill Road in Emmarentia. Go forth, shop, and enjoy the coffee.