Step into the heart of the Gothic Quarter during a transformative period for Barcelona, marked by the flourishing of Catalan culture and Modernism. Here, we’ll discover how coffee became part of Barcelona’s social life and its coffee culture, turning these spaces into places for meeting, conversation and the exchange of ideas. A stop, a storey of coffee history, and one question: what was it about coffee that made it part of the Barcelona that was emerging at the time?

We continue through the Gothic Quarter to discover another trace of coffee in Barcelona’s transformation. This time, our storey takes us to a moment when technology began to change something as simple as preparing an espresso. A small storey of innovation, tradition, and Barcelona that connects directly with what we will discover later at the Coffee Museum.

We arrive in El Born, a area closely connected to Barcelona’s commercial history and the arrival of products from around the world. Here, we’ll follow the journey of our little coffee bean to discover its origins, how it is selected, and what lies behind every cup. A look at speciality coffee in Barcelona, its coffee roasters, and the growing importance of knowing where every bean comes from.

In El Born, we come across one of the oldest traces of this storey. Here, we’ll travel back to the early days of coffee in Barcelona to discover when this bean began to find its place in the city and what lay behind this new custom. A small corner of El Born opens a window onto Barcelona of another time and the beginnings of a tradition that has endured to this day. A tradition that has continued to evolve over time, reflected today in the coffee shops of Barcelona and the new ways people experience coffee.

We will arrive at the final stop of our walking tour through the history of coffee in Barcelona: the Coffee Museum. The museum team will give us a general introduction to the space and its collection. We will then enjoy the coffee experience: we’ll grind the beans, prepare our own espresso using a historic coffee machine, and taste it freshly made. As a souvenir, we’ll take home a Polaroid photo of the experience. Afterwards, we’ll have time to explore the museum at our own pace and discover its collection of more than 2,000 pieces: machines, books about the history and evolution of coffee around the world, objects related to coffee culture, and its own selection of speciality coffees. After this free exploration, we’ll bring our journey through the history of coffee in Barcelona to an end. A storey that began centuries ago, crossed seas and generations, and still brings us together around a cup today.