Whenever I travel somewhere and the dates are convenient, I like organising live cupping events in different cities. For someone who doesn’t have a physical shop, this is the ultimate way to meet subscribers and customers and invite them to participate in a super crucial process; how we pick our coffees.

Thus, when I happened to be in Barcelona for a few days recently, I reached out to my friends at SlowMov Coffee roasters to see if they would be keen to host us. Luckily François and Carmen didn’t need much convincing, especially since they would also provide some coffees of their own for the cupping with the potential outcome that they would get featured in the next Coffeevine edition.

I’ve had a softspot for Slowmov for many years and I love working with them. Their first café and roastery in Gràcia is an iconic neighbourhood institution, which recently underwent a few changes since SlowMov opened a new café and kitchen just around the corner with way more space and more offerings. That is also where the cupping took place.

François and Carmen who are French and Catalan respectively, previously lived in the UK, France and Poland before they moved to Barcelona to set up their own specialty coffee business. SlowMov is a portmanteu of the words Slow and Movement because they wanted to give people the time and space to discover and enjoy fine specialty coffees. Anyone who has been to their first café knows that this intimate space offered a great view of the roasting and quality control action in progress but as François admitted during our event, the space had simply gotten too small to have both a roastery and café in one place.

At the time of writing, SlowMov was busy setting up its brand new roasting machine, a Probat UG22 that is a step up from the old Giesen W6 that served them well until now. The new café too offers an expansion with more seating, a tasty food menu with many vegetarian and vegan options and a taste of SlowMov’s modernised branding.

François, Carmen and their team regularly visit origin countries to meet producers and the coffees they source are always fresh and seasonal with interesting flavour profiles. On the cupping table that evening, François and Carmen didn’t just participate in the selection process, they also provided two coffees to be included on the table and were overjoyed when we got to give our thoughts on their coffees. One in particular stood out to us; an intrinsic cherry processed coffee from Giovana Boutet who is based in Panama.

This is a Catuaí that was processed with a short 16h anaerobic fermentation that gives this coffee a bright cup profile with a sparkling phosphoric acid not unlike a washed Kenyan coffee. It’s full of fruit and so exciting to drink. I cannot wait for you to get your hands on it so be sure to subscribe or pre-order the upcoming March 2024 Coffeevine box with this very coffee and two other beauties from the likes of Kava Family and Fjord Coffee.

To receive this outstanding coffee and its companion coffee from Kava Family and Fjord, order our European Roasters Selection or the Total Package with all coffees including our Global roasters selection for March.

Pre-orders close on 15.03.2024 / Ships globally on 20.03.2024