Johannesburg - Pick and Pay may have removed the offending "The Maid" and "The Gardener" mugs from their shelves but many people are still enraged that the store was selling them in the first place.
Twitter user @toni_verna was the first person to tweet a picture of the mugs, saying she had seen them at the store's Observatory branch and that she found them "hella problematic".
After many complaints trickled in Pick n Pay removed the offending mugs from the shelves.
However, the damage was already done.
The owner of a domestic workers agency has sworn never to buy from the store again and that she will encourage her employees to do the same as the mugs were offensive.
Yvonne Mapako, founder of Good Housekeeping - an online placement agency for domestic workers - said what Pick n Pay did was not right
"It was offensive and I'm going to stop buying things from them. The people who work for Good Housekeeping will also stop buying from them.”
*Mbali who works at Sweep South, another placement agency, expressed her anger after seeing the coffee mugs.
“Wow, I'm pis**d at Pick n Pay. They are offending our mothers,and our fathers. They must be held accountable because this is offensive,” Ndlovu* said.
Although she doesn’t agree with what Pick n Pay did, she said she will continue buying from them.
“It [Pick n Pay] is one shop that is closest to me when I am at work and home. This is sad,” she said.
According to Michael Morris, head of media at the Institute of Race Relation, the fact that Pick n Pay instructed a franchisee to remove from the offending mugs from its shelves following the criticism on social media highlights the importance for South Africans of overcoming false and demeaning assumptions inherited from apartheid and the country's colonial past.
Morris said products which play into demeaning stereotypes of domestic workers reinforce the false idea that South Africans’ interests are divisible by race or class, something which their research has repeatedly debunked.
"As one contributor to the Twitter debate put it 'In South Africa‚ domestic labour has a long history of dehumanization and racism attached to it. One method was and still is to deny helpers use of household crockery and cutlery as they were considered unworthy and unhygienic. This labelling encourages that idea'.”
‘Employers and employed are common citizens and deserve equal regard.
"Domestic labour arrangements have undergone considerable change since 1994, but it remains an aspect of South African life that warrants attention, especially as household routines and values and the intimate relationships they shape can be especially influential in inculcating lasting attitudes in young people," Morris said.