Starbucks, the coffee chain ubiquitous in U.S. cities, has spread to sub-Saharan Africa with the opening Thursday of a new location in Johannesburg.
The company announced in July it would be partnering with Taste Holdings to bring a number of stores to South Africa.
A group of people lined up outside the Johannesburg store before it opened, including some who waited there for seven hours.
Starbucks has more than 23,000 locations around the world. Before Thursday, the only African locations were in Egypt and Morocco.
The company says it gets a "considerable amount" of its coffee from farms in sub-Saharan Africa working with its centers supporting farmers in Ethiopia, Rwanda and Tanzania.
Those centers opened not long after Ethiopia accused the company of trying to block it from obtaining trademarks for the country's best-known coffee beans. They later agreed to work together to promote three of Ethiopia's coffee brands.
