What I think a lot of people don't quite get is that very high quality coffee is drastically different from your average coffee. I have nothing against your Folgers of the world, they're a great coffee to drink with milk or cream and sugar, but they are indeed much, much too bitter to drink black.

But a high quality coffee (and South Africa is one of the top producers of coffee, so they'd be able to locally source the good **** over there, fresher than anything) is generally less bitter. Freshly ground coffee is ALSO less bitter. So freshly ground, high quality coffee has very little of what you'd usually associate with coffee's bitterness.