Por último, un buen café

We were coming back from the bank looking for a coffee and stopped at a cafe. On the side, we noticed this store selling coffee beans. It looked wonderfully old fashioned; in fact, it was -- from 1902. Given the name, I had to have a posting for Mayra.

We'd been desperately seeking sanka -- er, just kidding! --  something other than the vacuum-packed bricks of flavor-free brown grounds we get at the grocery store but hadn't see a shop that sold fresh coffee. 

Stepping into this store, we got a rush: a giant wall of rich aroma.  Redolent of chocolate, old wood, tobacco -- smells I hadn't encountered in way too long.  Far from the scorched milk and sugared pastries of some omnipresent "coffee" stores from the Pacific Northwest... I realized charbucks doesn't have that smell, and how wrong that is. 

There were coffees from all over the world, of course, and one of the most expensive was in fact from Puerto Rico.  We asked about something full bodied, and he gave us a couple choices -- "acido o suave?" and we went for a half kilo of the black stuff, ground for a plunge pot.

Then I noticed the roasting machine set up in the back -- it looked like it was installed when the store opened,  113 years ago (you can just make it out on the right of the frame).  I asked (in very poor Spanish) if I could take a photo, explaining I had a friend back home who also roasted coffee for his shop (Hi, Doug!). He vehemently rejected my request, but -- pointing out the door -- said I could take one from there.   Barcelona's so overrun with camera-toting, selfie-stick wielding tourists that never buy anything, I wasn't surprised: the merchants are mobbed and customers crowded out. I've stopped, for the most part, taking out my phone camera in various markets. (Is there an app that can warn you of selfie-stick plagued areas of a city so you can avoid it?? maybe a Negative-Four Square, so you can go where people are NOT checking in?)

Anywho, the  coffee was excellent when we brewed up a pot. And ever time we opened the fridge door, where we kept the grounds, it was like a blast of mahogany/chocolate breeze.  

It's just run out, and I guess I can do without a good pot at home my last day here.  Cafés here make good "cafe solo" -- an espresso -- so I'm not going to be too deprived.