Aceites, Tapas, Flamenco and Chinese Opera

Spain 2005

After delays because of fog at Heathrow we took off for the two hour flight to Seville. Easy flying and landed at San Pablo airport in the rain. Taxi to Hotel Becquer which is a lovely Spanish Hotel near the city center and Guadalquiver River. The room is standard and comfortable with a trouser press too.

Met with my Canadian client and his Chinese his girlfriend for a general chat before having tapas on my own in the hotel tapas bar, La Leyenda. Tasty dish of piquillo peppers stuffed with salmon and basmati rice, topped with a creamy raisin sauce.

Breakfast before being picked up by Juan and taken to the processing machine factory. Checked out all the machines and did a layout design for my client's table olive processing plant. We then visited a 500 tonne table olive plant where we saw all sorts of useful equipment. Then off north-west of Seville to Alahal where we met the processing equipment factory owner who gave us lunch. Manzanilla sherry, lovely dry white wine and gorgeous red wine from Rioja. Tapas of tasty jamon (ham), Russian (potato) salad, piquillo peppers, prawns, cheese, more prawns, more ham, freshly baked bread and real coffee.

Then to Estepa, about 100km north of Seville, to see a huge factory. More coffee and Mantecado cakes made with olive oil, for which Estepa is famous for. Then back to Alahal to meet some processors and taste their olives, and more Cruzcampo beer. Juan brought us back to Seville and I proceeded to get lost in search of food. Eventually walked into a service station to get directions and a map, and found they sold beer – yes they do have breathalysers here.  

Monument to olive harvesters in Dos Hermanos near Seville

With my London-based sister's help through a briefing on how to do business with the Spanish, the business negotiations progressed well. It is great fun doing business the Spanish way. The office hours are a little disconcertung. Following a 10 o'clock start everything stops around 1pm and reopens after the siesta around 5pm. Shops then stay open to 11pm. The Tapas bars only start filling around 9pm and the nightlife keeps going until the early hours.


We had a 3pm meeting scheduled with another equipment manufacturer who didn’t bother to show. Such is Spain.

That evening Juan introduced us to his girlfriend Alicia with jet black hair and very animated. Alicia does Flamenco dancing and talks as fast as a bullet. They took us off into the maze of the ancient Moorish city that is the center of Seville, and we had a brief view of the stunning cathedral before slipping into a tapas bar. All the places we were taken to are authentically Spanish and off the tourist route. The meal was excellent and afterwards there was stocatto discussion between Alicia and Juan, apparently about a traditional flamenco bar that Alicia knew of. They popped into a few bars (there are bodega’s, cerveceria’s, tapas bars and restaurants) to confirm that the flamenco had reopened. It had so we caught a couple of taxi’s which squeezed through the cobbled one-way streets and dropped us off a few dark alleys away from the bar.

Through a heavy red door we walked into a huge area with benches, tables a tiny dance floor and a massive bar. Juan ordered Seville water for us to drink. The ‘water’ is concocted from cava, rum, cointreau, pineapple juice and a clear spirit which I think was cane spirit or vodka.

While we were waiting for the show to start it transpired that my client's girlfriend is a Chinese opera singer from Vancouver, in fact ‘the’ Chinese opera singer. Juan said it was a Spanish tradition that anyone could get up on the stage – called the table – to perform. Without a blink our opera singer slipped onto the stage and started singing Chinese opera, much to the bemusement of the Spanish audience. She received surprised applause.

The main show was due to start at 11pm and the bar filled with people and smoke. The guitarist and singer strolled onto the table top stage in street clothes and the flamenco dancer joined them. They warmed up on a few songs and then the dancing started. The whole performance was wonderfully strong and sensual.

The show lasted for three dances or so then a break before a few more. Dancers from the audience join in on the stage at the end of each cameo. The whole experience was authentically Spanish and not put on for tourists.  What a treat.

We left around 1am, pleased to get out into the fresh air and away from the thick cigarette smoke. Coffee on the way back followed very fond farewells to Juan and Alicia. Juan has been a wonderful host and epitomizes the Spanish way of doing business where friendship, food and entertainment are all part of the negotiation.

Up at 5.30am to catch the high speed train to Cordoba to meet Yves who’s company markets a brand of olive oil. Yves and his business partner, Tomas, are French and have formed a marketing company to deal specifically in Spanish food, centered on olive oil.

After a Spanish breakfast of fresh lightly toasted bread spread with olive oil and tomato preserve I was taken out to the farm where the groves dating back to Roman times are laden with fruit ready to harvest. Unfortunately it was very foggy so the views were limited. The farm  house is very old, with a modern processing plant as an adjunct.

Yves company is developing tapas bars around Europe as part of their olive oil marketing strategy. An interesting and very sensible approach to securing a market for one’s products.

Yves dropped me back in the ancient Arabic area of Cordoba, packed with American tourists and pesky gypsy children. I was soon on the way to the station and on the train back to Seville.

Shopping in the afternoon ended a busy day. Bought bus tickets to Merida  ready for the three hour bus trip the next day.