Not All Who Wander Are Lost… Some Just Find Coffee ☕✈️
The late great Antony Bourdain said don’t be a tourist. Be a traveller.
Tourists collect photos. Travellers collect stories. And for me, one of the most surprising stories came from a cup of coffee in Marrakech.
Not Starbucks. Not some hidden hipster flat white bar. This was Bacha Coffee.
A Palace with a Past
You don’t stumble into Bacha Coffee by accident. It lives inside the Dar el Bacha palace, built in 1910 for Thami El Glaoui, the infamous Pasha of Marrakech.
The Pasha was a man of contradictions: power broker, diplomat, showman. His palace became a hub where politicians, royals, and artists gathered. Think Winston Churchill one week, Charlie Chaplin the next. Coffee was the common thread — poured not as a transaction but as a ceremony of connection.
Walking through the heavy doors, you feel it. The tiles, the courtyard, the quiet hum of a place where history is still in the walls. This is not just a café. It’s a stage where culture has always been performed.
Opulence x Heritage
Coffee as Culture
Bacha Coffee started in 1910 with a simple focus: 100% Arabica beans, roasted and brewed with precision.
But in Morocco, coffee isn’t just about caffeine. It’s about pace. About ritual.
Sit in Marrakech with a pot and you see it unfold: the patient pour, the generous servings, the unhurried conversations. There’s a rhythm to it. Not the laptop-hunched “flat white and emails” vibe. Something deeper.
As a traveller, this struck me. Coffee here wasn’t background noise. It was front and centre — a lens to see the city.
Reinvention & Ownership
Like many heritage brands, Bacha Coffee drifted into quiet obscurity. The palace stayed, the name lingered, but the momentum slowed.
Enter V3 Gourmet, a Singapore-based group with a knack for spotting global potential. They didn’t just buy a café. They resurrected a legacy.
What I find fascinating is how they balanced authenticity with ambition. They restored the palace with respect, but they also asked: what would it mean for Bacha Coffee to be more than Marrakech?
It’s a lesson in leadership. Sometimes the most powerful move isn’t invention, but reinvention. Taking what already exists — a brand, a building, a story — and finding a way to make it resonate today.
Morocco - you have to go to the source
Global Expansion
Fast forward to now and Bacha Coffee is everywhere. Singapore, Paris, Dubai, Doha. The flagship in ION Orchard Singapore looks like something out of a Wes Anderson set: towering canisters of beans, gold accents, staff guiding you through hundreds of single origins like sommeliers of caffeine.
It’s more than coffee. It’s theatre. A deliberate choice to turn a drink into an experience.
For travellers, it’s a gift: the chance to connect to Marrakech without boarding a plane. But it also sparks a question — does expansion dilute authenticity, or spread it?
Was the best surprise to transfer in Singapore to find Bacha waiting for us ………
Lessons from a Cup
What stayed with me wasn’t just the coffee (though it was excellent). It was the reminder that travel changes you most when you lean in.
You can drink an espresso on the go. Or you can sit in a palace courtyard and taste a century of history.
You can see Bacha Coffee as a global brand. Or you can see it as a reminder that origins matter.
And you can treat coffee as fuel. Or you can treat it as connection.
That’s why I say I’m a traveller, not a tourist. I don’t just want the picture. I want the story behind the cup.
Not Costa - but actually a lot cheaper ….
A Question for You
When you think about your own rituals — coffee, food, travel — are you rushing through them, or letting them teach you something?
Because sometimes, the most powerful lessons aren’t written in books or learned in classrooms. They’re poured into a small porcelain cup in a quiet Moroccan palace.
☕ Would you travel for coffee? Or should coffee do the travelling for you?
Here's to a Bright Future rooted in our Rich Past 🧔
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