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Retailer Profile: El Magnifico: a magnificent approach to tea & coffee: while tea and coffee can be considered market competitors, Salvador Sans, owner of El Magnifico and Sans & Sans Fine Tea Merchants, has found a harmonious balance. His beautiful specialty shops have opened the eyes and expanded the palates of Spanish tea and coffee drinkers.

Article Excerpt
Staff Report

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T&C: How long have you been in business?

Salvador Sans: My Grandfather and Father were coffee roasters and I remember playing soccer with my father's employees when I was a kid and jumping on the coffee bags and helping during Christmas time in the shop. I started selling tea in our coffee shop in 1986. In 1996 I opened the first brand shop, Sans & Sans Fine Tea Merchants, located in Barcelona, Spain, which is exclusively dedicated to selling tea.

T&C: How did you begin?

SS: I was studying at the university and working part-time in the company for four years until I went into military service; it was then when I was away from the smell of coffee, when I realized how much I miss it. Before I left, a coffee importer gave me a book by Philippe Jobin, which was a big revolution in my mind because at that time the coffee industry was beginning to recover from the Franco's days (dictator/head of state of Spain from 1936 until his death in 1975). After my military service I went to meet Jobin, as he has been one of the biggest influences in my career.

I am the third generation of coffee roasters but my mother always has been a devoted tea drinker. In the 1980s basically nobody was selling tea in Spain so I thought...