Just under a dozen people queue in front of the Baburu Café bar on a Saturday morning, and Óscar Alonso, the owner, and his partner are busy serving them. As soon as an order is shipped, a new customer joins the wait. “I think there could be two or three more in Zamora, calmly,” he says about specialty coffee cafes like his, now past those frenetic minutes that, he says, are not usual. “Maybe I’ll open them,” he says animatedly. Its location, the only one in the city of its kind, is one of the drops of the wave that has flooded the streets, especially in the main cities, in recent years. The sector, in general, still sees room to grow, although it also predicts a certain correction in a segment in which not only small entrepreneurs and lovers of this grain are looking. For coffee to carry the “specialty” surname, it must exceed a score of 80 on the Specialty Coffee Association scale, although it is a concept increasingly related to traceability and sustainability. And, its evangelists say, when it is proven there is no turning back. All this, added to the drive of millennials and younger generations, changes in consumption and, among other aspects, its a priori attractiveness from a business point of view – due to schedules or profitability – has paved the way for its proliferation. “As long as there is quality and as long as there is a serious project behind it, it doesn’t have to explode,” Yolanda Valero, who together with her sister Marian opened Bluebell Coffee in Valencia in 2014, says by phone about this boom, where they are committed to women producers and their own roasting. «There is still a lot to cover. There are still many places, most of them, where the coffee served is of very poor quality.»
Higher consumption
Spain consumes 67 million cups of coffee a day, 22.5 million outside the home, according to figures from the Spanish Coffee Association. “Our latest national consumption data shows a growth of 3.7%,” says its general secretary, Montserrat Prieto. This drink is embedded in the country’s daily life, linked to a way of life in which it is natural to socialize around a table. However, it does not have its own codes and rituals as anchored as they do, for example, in Italy. But this is changing: “Coffee culture is being seen in the traction it is experiencing in terms of the emergence of specialty coffee shops, the phenomenon of baristas, greater consumer demand regarding knowledge of coffee, its history…”, comments Prieto. And he adds: «Coffee is no longer seen as simply a cup, but rather it is linked to a way of preparation, to origins… And this is a phenomenon that we are seeing in recent years.» One of the specialty coffee cafes of the Syra Coffee brand in the Eixample neighborhood of Barcelona. Massimiliano Minocri Specialty coffee began to gain space and prominence more than a decade ago thanks to entrepreneurs who had come into contact with it in other countries, such as the Valero sisters, or Patricia Alda and Santiago Rigoni. They opened the first Toma Café of the three they have in Madrid in 2011. Rigoni believes that the explosion of openings is partly linked to an image of an easy business. “What is going to happen is that many proposals are going to begin to be transferred,” he says on the terrace of one of his cafes. Consistency and commitment to the product, they add, are essential. «Some will work, others won’t. I think that’s evolution, like in everything,» she says. In 2015, in the Barcelona neighborhood of Gràcia, Yassir Raïs, who had studied abroad and every time he returned home he missed this type of drink, opened the first Syra Coffee. Today there are about 40 spread throughout the country. “In my opinion, no,” he answers as to whether this hospitality proposal is oversized. “Due to the nature of the product, bubbles usually occur with products with a low recurrence of consumption,” he adds. Emilio Gallego, general secretary of the Spanish Hospitality Industry, also does not believe that there is a bubble, understood as a mismatch with demand. “There may be poorly planned businesses, but like in any other segment,” he comments. The final boom came after the pandemic. “In the last two or three years the movement is accelerating a lot,” says Ricardo Oteros, coordinator of the Spanish chapter of the Specialty Coffee Association. It was precisely a little over three years ago when Mauricio De Luca started Dosis Café in Trafalgar, a neighborhood in the Madrid district of Chamberí that concentrates several of these establishments, and where Toma Café is also a neighbor. “I think there is still plenty of room,” De Luca says of the market. “And this neighborhood also seems to me to be an example that it is super valid and that there is space for everyone.” Less than 200 meters away is Naji Specialty Coffee, a coffee shop opened when the word coronavirus was beginning to be heard on the news. Its founder, Naji Alasil, also sees room for the sector to continue growing, but clarifies: «They have to have something different, because opening a specialty with a national roaster that works with several cafes… I don’t know what profit you can have with that.» Differentiation and maintenance of standards are essential in a market with more and more options. Already in the midst of the pandemic, Alberto Velarde opened, also in the capital, a coffee shop called East Crema Coffee, knowing that it would be the first of a chain, with a strong technological component, which today exceeds 20 points of sale throughout the country. He still sees a gap in a market in which consumption, he points out, is still low. “There have been some coffee shops that have labeled specialty coffee and they are not, and the customer already knows enough not to be fooled,” he asserts. “In the end you have to offer coffee of very good quality and differential.” Baburu’s situation is somewhat diverse because she navigates alone in a sea of conventional venues. “It’s good because in the end there is only you, but you don’t generate a coffee culture,” says Alonso about his particular monopoly. “Competition is good,” he says. In an environment with more penetration and options, Oteros predicts a greater journey for those that adapt and complement their offer with other products that consumers are asking for: «The most purist coffee shops, where coffee is the absolute center, I don’t think that for that reason they will grow much more.» Many of these spaces already include premium breakfasts in their menus. There are different business proposals around specialty coffee. “The most recognized, those that have set the most trends and continue to set them, tend to be independent coffee shops, small entrepreneurs who love coffee,” says Oteros. The opinion is unanimous: this type of establishments have been the driving force of the sector in Spain. But its aroma—and a market whose value the consulting firm Grand Review Research estimated at 88 billion euros in 2024—no longer only attracts baristas and enthusiasts. “We are already beginning to see the entry of groups, groups buying small chains that had started a long time ago…” says De Luca. You don’t have to go far to find an example: last summer, the Colombian group Lux became the main shareholder of Syra Coffee. “And there are already companies that have grown with venture capital within the sector,” he adds. In addition, large corporations have set their sights on it, such as Inditex, which last year opened inside one of its Zacaffé stores, where they serve Waco Coffee beans from A Coruña. Some entrepreneurs also decided to take the leap into roasting for third parties, serving as gasoline for other establishments. “We were quite clear about it from the beginning,” says Valero, from Bluebell. «We always liked that area more, more than opening other cafes and managing other spaces. We wanted other people to have our cafes in their spaces.» Toma Café, for example, also supplies other hoteliers. “It’s going to the heart of the business,” says Alda about roasting. At East Crema Coffee they have taken another step in diversification and, for example, are already working on ready-to-consume products. “In fact, several chains or several groups have begun to ask us to sell our product,” says Velarde. 
Bluebell Cafeteria, in Valencia.Mònica TorresSpecialty coffee shops are a trend, and the bad thing about trends is that just as they come, they can go. But the sector does not see a fad, but rather a deeper change. In the pages of this same supplement, the general director of Starbucks in Spain said a few months ago that these establishments educated the consumer and raised the bar. The protagonists agree. Your coffee is setting the pace. “It is a quality that stays and in the end becomes the new standard,” says Alda. “I can’t conceive of opening a business today, whatever it may be, it could be a wine place, a tapas place, like a Michelin star restaurant… any place that you want to present as a place that takes care of the product, and that doesn’t offer specialty coffee,” says Valero. “After the pandemic, I think the world has become very demanding,” says Alasil.
New patterns
Consumers understand more about coffee and care about what is behind the cup in their hands. Consumption patterns have changed and this does not go unnoticed by the rest of the hospitality industry. “It is in permanent change,” says Gallego. “It is a sector that is with eyes and ears behind its client every day,” he points out. “Now they are beginning to see it a bit as a threat or as a wake-up call that we also have to get into the game of quality coffee and traceability,” says De Luca about the reaction of conventional coffee shops and brands, where he also worked. «Before we were like posh people. Those who charge three euros for coffee.» The price range is wide, it varies between establishments and preparations, but in general it is an offer with higher prices than those of traditional bars. However, the industry rejects the label of expensive product. They present it as an accessible luxury. “For me, the expensive price is when a commercial or very poor quality coffee costs two euros,” summarizes Velarde. It is difficult to estimate how much it costs to open the doors of a cafeteria of this type, since aspects such as the location, the size of the spaces or the works needed and the entrepreneur’s own commitment come into play. Without forgetting the machinery, indicated as one of the main outlays, although there are different prices and qualities and you can choose different payment methods or go to the second-hand market. The most common estimates, always accompanied by the warning that they can vary widely depending on the variables mentioned, range between 70,000 and 150,000 euros. Raïs opens the range of 5,000 euros to hundreds of thousands and Alonso estimates that between 30,000 and 60,000 are needed, although he points out that you can start with less. The value of grain has been rising for years, with production threatened by climate change, geopolitical issues and the incorporation of consumers in new markets. “The cost of the raw material per unit, per cup, no matter how expensive the coffee is, is very insignificant,” says Oteros. «Quality coffees are very affordable. That’s why, even though we have experienced moments of crisis, people drink coffee.» When it comes to sitting at a table to enjoy it, however, it can have a greater impact on your pocket. The final price entails expenses that are not obvious, but are noticeable, such as the premises, the machinery and the professionals who prepare them. «In general, in specialty coffee there is already care. And people value that,» says Rigoni. “You pay for quality, it’s normal,” says Alonso. Even so, price does not seem to be a very significant barrier for either new or regular customers. “The reaction of consumers is linked to the ability we have to explain what is behind it,” says Raïs. That the public is aware of the work involved, that they can reach the origin of the berries and know the impact that each sip has means that they can value their price more fairly. Differences linked to the way of consuming it, to rotation, also influence. Having a coffee in five minutes is not the same as sitting down to work or chat for longer.
