Collection of chocolate making machinery by Simon Coll

In the former workshop of the Simón Coll factory, on Sant Pere Street, a museographic tour known as “Espai Xocolata” has been opened since 2012. The heart of this space is the Chocolate Machinery Collection, a set of nine large machines and several original vessels that allow you to follow the traditional cocoa process step by step: from roasting and molting to refining and forming the tablets. The pieces — cylindrical toasters, granite roller refiners, water bath basins or tempering tanks — date mainly from the first third of the 20th century and still retain the patina of manual work that permeated the family workshop.
The expository discourse unfolds on two levels. The first section evokes the American origin of cocoa and shows the first utensils used in Europe; the second focuses on the technical evolution that the Simón Coll house experienced since the Sadurninian entrepreneur of the wine world decided, in the 1840s, to diversify the business with artisanal chocolate. Thanks to an immersive audiovisual show, the visitor can see the machines in action, listen to their metallic roar and understand how the mechanism of valves and rollers replaced the arm force.
The museological intervention has respected the original industrial architecture — exposed brick walls, metal beams and hydraulic pavement — and has incorporated spot lighting that dramatizes gears and silos. Highlights include the copper and wood vessels for the manual roasting of grain, the refiner with basalt rollers and the continuous tempering machine, considered unique pieces in the Penedès.
Historically, the collection bears witness to the transition from craftsmanship to the semi-industrial process: from the first documented workshop around 1850 to the modernization of the 1970s, when the company expanded internationally. Each machine is accompanied by panels explaining the innovations it meant and period photographs showing generations of the Coll family working on it.
Currently, the Espai Xocolata receives more than 40,000 visitors a year, mostly on guided tours that combine tasting and historical narrative. The collection thus becomes not only a heritage showcase, but also a pole of gastronomic education and a local pride: the Sadurnines claim it as a symbol of their ability to innovate without renouncing the trade.
Among the anecdotes told during the visit, the story of the old toaster, which survived the Civil War thanks to being hidden under sacks of beans, or that of the refinery that still preserves remains of petrified cocoa from the fifties. The complex, in perfect condition and fully functional, today constitutes one of the few complete testimonies of traditional chocolate technology in Catalonia.

Open to visitors: Yes
Consult guided tours of the Espai Xocolata (schedules vary according to season, prior reservation required)
Accessible: Yes
More information: Link 1Link 2