“Madrid is already gone.” With these three words, a publication on Pum Pum Café has become one of the most sought-after establishments in the central neighborhood of the capital. Every morning, especially on holidays or weekends but practically every day, dozens of people (most of them tourists) wait to enter to enjoy a brunch or try their specialty coffee.
The brand has already arrived in Chamberí, with the opening of the Petit Pum Pum Café on Santísima Trinidad street. And the specialty coffee model has spread throughout the city, backed by tourism and the support of large brands seeking to diversify their businesses. The latest was Zara, which in November inaugurated its line of Zacaffé coffee shops with a first space integrated into the new Zara Man store at number 14 Hermosilla Street (in the Salamanca district).
According to the website of the company founded by Amancio Ortega, Zacaffé is “a café with a product designed to be enjoyed during the experience at the premises”, as well as “a place designed with its own and independent identity, whose interiors will be adapted and transforming based on locations throughout upcoming global openings.” The Hermosilla establishment boasts of offering hospitality products gourmetwith a prominent presence of coffees (supplied by the prestigious A Coruña firm Wacco Coffee). It also has a selection of pastries defined as premium. The prices are also gourmetsince the most affordable coffee costs 2.50 euros.
Barista Marcos Zoya explains the phenomenon in conversation with We are Madrid. He has been linked to the world of specialty coffee for 14 years. He is a trainer in Specialty Coffee Associationof whose board of directors in Spain he is a member. He is also a coffee taster at the highest level. In addition, it has a consulting company and another events company. Thanks to all this resume, it collaborates with brands of great prestige and popularity such as La Marzocco, whose history is an example of the proliferation and continuous adaptation of the sector.
“La Marzocco has been in operation since 1927 in Italy and from its beginnings it was a benchmark. It must be taken into account that they have the best machinery there, although the Italian one is a more classic and inbred interpretation of the way of working coffee. He made the leap to the United States with Starbucks. One of the bosses of the American company noticed the machines they had in a small workshop in Florence and took them to his country. With the change of model to semi-automatic in the nineties, these machines had a second life in independent coffee shops,” explains Marcos. Afterwards “the brand is reborn with the specialty coffee“, and that we continue hand in hand is a sign of quality.”
Regarding specialty coffee, he indicates that its origin took place almost 25 years ago in Australia and the Nordic countries: “It was about giving strength back to whoever is behind the bar, to the producer. Anglo-Saxon culture, on the other hand, offered a thousand options adapted to the consumer that ignored raw materials. It was short and paste to suit the client. The idea is to recover the prominence and discourse in the producer, educate and raise awareness among the baristas. From there, build a bridge from the producing countries to the customers.”
“In non-Spanish speaking countries we are late,” says Marcos. “We didn’t start until 2016, due to three factors: the language barrier, the purchasing power barrier, and the absence of that second wave of Starbucks coffee that never fully arrived here because we stuck to traditional coffee.”
In non-Spanish speaking countries we are late due to three factors: the language barrier, the purchasing power barrier and the absence of that second wave of Starbucks coffee that never fully arrived here because we stuck to the traditional coffee.
Marcos Zoya
— Barista, trainer and consultant
At the local level, Marcos does not observe too many particularities in Madrid compared to other parts of the country. He does emphasize that “menus have to be adapted regionally or state-wise because each territory has its own take”. He illustrates this with a paradigmatic case, which is not true in many of these new specialty coffee shops: “I try not to talk about latte but of coffee with milksomething much kinder.”
For Marcos, the change in trend follows one in consumption: “Coffee, like bread or beer, was consumed out of necessity and not for pleasure. Now we also want to appreciate and taste it.” “A generational change, a generation millennial “That in many cases we were forced to leave due to the economic crisis and with this we discovered other cultures.” “We brought him and we got used to other routines. In the end the palate is not stupid and gets used to good things,” he adds with a laugh.
He believes that the proliferation of specialty coffee is also influenced by the profile of the new generations: “We are more hedonistic. “We have a part of us that wants to continue being a big child who enjoys small pleasures.” This factor may also explain the close link between tourism and specialty coffee.
Thus, the specialty coffee has not been immune to the eventification that big cities are experiencing. From February 15 to 17, Madrid will host CoffeFest 2025, self-defined as “the largest quality coffee event in Europe.” It will present the “definitive” list of the best specialty coffee shops in the world, The World’s 100 Best Coffee Shopswhich more than 30,000 establishments around the world opt for. Unfltrd Coffee, Misión Café, María Peperina Café, Dosis Café, Hanso Café and Ambu Coffee are the Madrid representatives.
A sector in evolution: from purist inbreeding to commercial expansion
Marcos experienced firsthand, applied to his own palate, the transformations in consumption that have relaunched the sector: “When I started I became a Taliban of the specialty coffeea purist for whom anything that involved adulterating, combining or enriching coffee was sacrilege. But that was at a time of struggle against the establishment. Now I’m at a different point, specialty coffee is more established and the nonsense goes away. The time has come to be kind, if we continue to be inbred we will die of success among four kills and the trend that we represent will never become the replacement in the world of coffee.”
And what do you think about initiatives like Zacaffé? Marcos distinguishes between three groups of consumers according to the moment in which they adopt the product: precursors, early adopters and mainstreams. Collaborations like this seek to expand the field of that third stage: “Specialty coffee already has its space. It is time to penetrate other places to continue expanding, from Zara to Michelin star restaurants.” The collaboration of influencers It plays an important role in achieving that penetration.
At this point, Marcos launches a lapidary and ominous phrase about what is to come: “Traditional coffee will disappear in a couple of generations. It will remain in a redoubt. It is no longer viable to pay little for this product, unless they are giving you a hard time. What we do is more expensive, but an affordable luxury that is here to stay.” He gives some examples of these trends that he was against but that he now values: “Making a good pumpking spice latte or good alcohol-free cocktails with coffee show that, if the raw material is good (cocoa, pumpkin puree or olive oil), the final product will be good.”
Marcos’s premonition about the end of traditional coffee still seems distant. But it is a model that is beginning to suffer. On September 15, just a month and a half before the opening of Zacaffé, the legendary Café Santamaría in the Delicias neighborhood (in the Arganzuela district) closed its doors. Choked by the works on Metro line 11 and the growing insecurity on Áncora Street, its owner lowered the blinds with his sights set on retirement. It is not the first classic cafeteria to cease its activity in Madrid in recent years. With them you lose a style of coffee, but also a lifestyle.
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