Fórum Coffee Festival opens its doors in L’Hospitalet this weekend

The Fòrum Coffee Festival opened its doors for the first time on Friday morning, and organizers expect more than 10,000 visitors from the best coffee professionals to coffee enthusiasts, over the weekend. 

The festival is held from Friday to Sunday in the shopping center, La Farga, located in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, a short metro ride from the center of Barcelona.

The aim of the festival is to “strengthen the relationship between the different links of the coffee chain in order to benefit the producers, the industry and the consumers,” according to the festival’s director, Yolanda Bolaños. 

In order to do so, the event will welcome producers, exporters, logistics companies, coffee roasters, equipment manufacturers, and baristas.

2017 World Barista Champion, Dale Harris, is excited about taking part in the festival. He sees Barcelona as an up-and-coming coffee market reminiscent of the UK market 5-10 years ago: “You can feel the same energy and you can see that Barcelona will be the next place.”    

The event will also offer tastings of high-quality coffee worldwide and host the first Coffee Symposium with lectures, roundtable discussions, and talks with national and international experts. 

Barcelona-based coffee heavyweight Syra Coffee founder and CEO Yassir Raïs also attends the festival. He reveals that one of the key elements to Syra Coffee’s success has been a love of bringing good coffee to the customer: “We want to connect the farms with the consumer - from farm to cup.”       

Another program highlight is the National Barista Pro Fòrum Cafè Championship, where 16 baristas from all over Spain will compete in the seven different disciplines: Tasting, Order, Filter Coffee, Signature Drink, Origen, Latte art, and Espresso blend. Other competitions include Best Espresso Home and Best Single-Origin Coffee.

During the festival’s three days, 65 stands will showcase the latest coffee equipment for the hospitality business, industrial use, and the private consumer. 

The consumers will also be able to taste over 100 different types of coffee, which Dale Harris says is a great way of “opening your eyes to the potential of the drink”, as well as understanding the whole process of coffee from farming to roasting and brewing.

According to the organization behind the festival, coffee is one of the most popular drinks in Spain and the second most popular in the world, and, with this in mind, the goal is to become “the biggest coffee fair in Spain,” Yolanda Bolaños said.