OUR HISTORY
Café Barsel was established in 1996. Its founder, Juan Basset, having built up 25 years of experience in the coffee sector, decided to set up Café Barsel to fulfil his demands for quality in terms of both the product and the production process. Thanks to the quality and service delivered to its customers, the Barsel family gradually grew, along with its interest in professional development, until in 2013 we decided fully to take the plunge into the world of specialty coffees.
To apply loving care in the way we handle these high-quality coffees, alongside the passion we saw in our customers to improve the way they make their coffee day by day, we decided to improve our training at specialist coffee academies around the globe, so as then to pass this knowledge on both to our customers and to coffee lovers.
Our constant training and research in the different processes involved in coffee have given us a degree of professionalism and knowledge of the field which attracts the interest of both national and international associations, who ask us to partner them in the various tasks they perform: judging championships, serving on organisational, structural and training committees, tasks which we undertake day by day with great enthusiasm, since this experience and passion for our product give us a clear goal for which to strive: to create a coffee culture.
We continued to grow step by step, until in 2017 we decided to expand our premises, above all to handle the growing demand for our coffee. With the obsession we already had to take painstaking care of our ingredients, these new facilities had to fulfil a fundamental requirement: to use the very latest technology, allowing us to monitor and parametrise all our data, covering both storage and transportation, roasting and packaging. To be able to manage all the possible variables, alongside our knowledge, successfully providing our customers with roasted coffee which maintains 100% of its qualities.
Thanks to our constantly enquiring minds, while we designed and sourced the machinery for this new facility, we came up with a new idea to improve the surrounding world, in combination with our core project of creating a coffee culture. This resulted in the 2030 Project, with the goal of making Café Barsel a sustainable company, helping to improve life throughout the coffee chain, from grower to consumer, as well as the people around us, contributing to a much more promising and sustainable future for all.
OUR APPROACH HAS 3 FUNDAMENTAL CORNERSTONES
The first cornerstone is the active principle of sustainability in the coffee value chain, dealing directly with the growers, cutting out intermediaries and ensuring they receive a fair price for their coffee. This allows us to make a direct contribution to the development of their lives, and above all their professional development, which means they can reinvest in their land and processing areas, improving the quality of their coffee year after year.
The second fundamental cornerstone is the core of sustainability: the environment. We are replacing the material in our packaging to ensure it is fully recyclable, switching from bags to tins. Metal is the most recyclable container on the market, and is often used by consumers for other purposes. If it is disposed of, it must be placed in the yellow recycling container, but in the event of error, the magnetic properties of the metal mean that 80% of the tins are recovered and recycled, giving them an infinite lifespan. All of which combines with the fact that this packaging requires the least energy to recycle, with a 70% energy saving compared with other containers.
And the third cornerstone: the energy we consume. When we planned our new facilities in 2017, to continue the course of this project we installed a cutting-edge roasting machine which recirculates the hot air, saving 30% of energy compared with traditional coffee roasters, and reducing atmospheric emissions of CO2. Another goal is to provide our facilities with solar energy using photovoltaic panels, to generate all the energy we consume and, if possible, to feed any surplus into the grid. As well as replacing all traditional vehicles with electric models.
Which is what we have achieved so far, and we hope to be able to continue generating enthusiasm, a coffee culture, and a more sustainable world for many more years to come.
MEMBERS AND OUR TEAM
We are members of the Fórum Cultural del Café, a non-profit organisation working towards the development of a coffee culture, and are also trainers approved by the organisation, and registered judges for national barista championships.
We are likewise members of the SCA, the global specialty coffee association, for which we are also certified trainers.
Our team includes Alejandro Basset, who has Arabica Q-grader certification from the Quality Coffee Institute, in recognition of his coffee grading skills.
