Museo de Xocolata - Barcelona Chocolate Museum

About Barcelona Chocolate Museum

The Barcelona Chocolate Museum, Museo de Xocolata is located in a building of the site of the former Sant Agusta Monastery. The museum explains the origins of chocolate in South America and the history of its discovery, cultivation and arrival in Europe. The Museum also explains the mythical properties, medicinal properties, nutritional values and traditions of chocolate consumption.

Since the discovery in the 15th century, chocolate has played a role in the economic and social fabric of Barcelona, with the port acting as a starting point for the sale and distribution of the product all over Europe. The first workshop that transformed drinking chocolate into a solid product is recognised to have existed in the city at the end of the 19th century.

Museo de Xocolata History

After the war of succession, the monks were moved out and the monastery became part of the citadel fortress. The building that is the chocolate museum is actually the old army barracks of the citadel. The relationship with chocolate and the Army is that chocolate was prescribed as a food ration of the 18th century military academies. For breakfast each cadet and company officer shall be given one and a half ounces of chocolate with a quarter of a pound of bread.... When the troops were garrisoned in the citadel, chocolate was commonly eaten. The halberdier corps (Monarchs personal bodyguard) was enviously known as the chocolateros, because, they were a pampered, elite corps and consumed a great deal of chocolate.

The museum opened in 2000 as a small business of guild members. Today The Museum is owned by the Barcelona Confectionary Guild and is dedicated solely to chocolate.

Image Gallery for Barcelona Chocolate Museum

Click on any of the 44 images to open full screen gallery player

❮ ❯