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Having spent 5 days in Madrid last week I have to share all my impressions on the coffee topic I’ve gathered there, and there vere quite a few! Obviously, I did my research before the trip since I anticipated this big and hip city would have a lot on the menu in this regard and made a list of all the specialty coffee shops worth a visit. Here it is:

As we only had 4 days there, I managed to visit just 4 of them. My favourite was Hola Coffee because of it’s very relaxing atmosphere, nice padded benches to chill on, good selection of zines and coffee books to accompany your drink and the toilet door that was full of coffee themed stickers ONLY!(this is a bit embarrassing, but I really loved it!). Also, filter coffee comes with a little card with info on the beans - coffee tech specs, very adorable. Here are some impressions:

Also, I’ve discovered an amazing new coffee magazine I haven’t heard about before - SOLO Magazine. It comes out twice a year in spanish and english and you can buy a copy online for 15 EUR (for the newest). I didn’t find a subscription possibility though. As a fan of STANDART Magazine, I was surprised to find there are more high quality options on the market and a little bonus - it is almost twice as thick as a usual Standart Zine! Obviously, I got myself a copy immediately.

Wandering around the city and having a trained eye, I stumbled upon a poster in the window of one of the coffee shops that said: MAD COFFEE FESTIVAL 2022. What?! Quickly scanned the poster for any dates among unfamiliar spanish words and couldn’t believe my eyes - the coffee festival is on the exact weekend I am spending in Madrid. Now that’s what I call a coincidence! First thing on Saturday we’ve set out to the festival, that was taking place not exactly central in Madrid - google maps was showing 45 minutes with public transport North of downtown. We took the bus to La Infinito Cafe, which is halfway to our destination and had breakfast there. Salmon french toast is my big recommendation and they also had great specialty coffee, I went for Pumpkin Spiced Latte which I never do normally and was very impressed - it was spicy but not sweet and had a great milk texture of regular specialty coffee milk beverage - delicious! Having walked the rest of the way on foot exploring the not so central Madrid we were finally there - inside it was way bigger and busier then I imagined judging by the neighborhood and location, another great surprise. I was worried it was going to be just Aeropress Competition (that’s what the poster and website said), but in fact it was a full-blown specialty coffee exibition with several dozen roasteries and specialty coffee shops brewing coffee, performing cuppings, selling beans as well as many big sponsors like Victoria Arduino, Rocket Espresso and Alpro Milk. I’ve spent some hours tasting different coffees, checking out the competition, talking to people and generally having a very good time and found some real gems like microlot beans from Toma Cafe - have never tried it before. They were also roasting with a small roasting machine batches of 100gr on the spot, an interesting approach. I got myself microlot beans from El Salvador, ang a couple of other beans - tried to keep myself at bay considering luggage restrictions:) Also very much looking forward to try the Martin Tostador beans grown by Columbian farmer Johan Vergara - they have been exposed to a dry aerobic fermentation of 24 hours and after that placed inside Grainpro bags for another 50 hours at a temperature below 22 degrees. After that they were left to dry on raised beds until 11% of moisture content was achieved. Sounds tasty, right?

Here is a little glimpse of the aeropress competition:

One of the biggest discoveries for me in the time spent in Madrid is probably the concept of idiosyncratic coffee shops, that I’ve found out about in the Solo Magazine I told you about earlier. The idea goes back to Japan in the 50ies and is based on combining vinyl and good sound with a specialty coffee experience. I was very surprised to find out this is not something brand new, but yet I have never heard about it. Madrid has 2 coffee shops that adopted this idea: Faraday and Toma 3/Proper Sound. Honestly, I think this is brilliant and I can’t stop thinking about how to spread this concept around Europe more, especially Germany and best case scenario Munich:) Warm vinyl sound amplified though a good quality HiFi system, good cup of specialty coffee - who wouldn’t want to escape the hectic city life there? Pioneer of the concept and owner of Shelter in Tokyo Yoshio Nojima believed such spaces teach you to listen to music in order to learn to listen to yourself. Toma 3/Proper Sound also organizes natural wine and vinyl evenings Fridays and Saturdays, which I found out from their employee while we were chatting on the Mad Coffee Festival. Same evening I was there and it was an great experience! It reminded me of natural wine evenings Jacob organizes on Fridays in the Bla Cafe in Munich (highly recommend!) only spiced up with vinyl DJ, immersing you in warm atmosphere while you sip your natural wine (btw. they had natural vermuth too, delicious!).

Another random thing I’ve noticed in Madrid - they seem to have “fake” specialty coffee shops…not 100% sure if they are fake, but I’ve seen a couple that sure thing looked like it (one of them was literally next door to Taco Bell and had the same look) and I haven’t read anything about them in my extensive research. That made me think that while it is certainly not great and confusing, it could also be a sign that the actual specialty coffee culture in this city is so big everyone knows about it, so putting “specialty coffee” on your shop window boosts your sales. Isn’t that a fascinatig phenomenon?

Anyways, wrapping it up here is me after I’ve found out I didn’t actually forget my coffee beans second day into vacation (context: I am on Mallorca, without access to specialty coffee shops and I have my whole aeropress travel setup and new grinder I was willing to try out and beans are nowhere to be found) and a coffee plant in the botanical garden in Madrid: