In his book, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow, Yuval Noah Harari suggests that sugar is more dangerous than gunpowder, citing four causes of death in 2012:

• War: 120,000
• Crime: 500,000
• Suicide: 800,000
• Diabetes: 1,500,000

His book’s an interesting and thought provoking read but I’m not convinced he’s right on the sweet stuff. Weight, lifestyle, genetics, age and race can all play a part in the onset of diabetes. Sugar too, and perhaps a big one, but it’s just one piece of the jigsaw.

One thing of which I am certain though is that Harari’s take on sugar wouldn’t have been welcomed in Torre del Mar 150 years ago. It would probably have seen him marched out of town.

I’ve gone all sugary because I went to an old sugar factory yesterday, pictured above, the Nuestra Señora del Carmen. 150 years ago the sugar industry was the sweet, beating heart of the town and surrounding areas, with thousands of people employed in its cultivation and in the factories where harvests were processed. The reed beds where the sugar cane grew exceeded 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres). In a good year they could produce more than 100,000 tons.

The factory, built in 1846 and now an exhibition and conference venue, was powered by steam, based on similar constructions in Cuba. I’m not sure how everything worked but this is one of the steam engines on display.

When the cavernous building was being restored it was thought at first that the old timber roof would need to be replaced, a huge and costly undertaking. But it turned out that the white mould they’d thought to be covering the timbers was actually an ageing, sticky skin of evaporated sugar. The renovation was still a pricey undertaking though, costing €1.5 million.

It cost nothing to look around its vast interior, where there are displays of the factory’s life in its heyday. Being the only visitor, the wonderfully helpful woman on the door became my personal guide and, with the help of Google Translate and powered by her love of the place, she showed me round as you might a visitor to your home.

I’d never imagined before going there that I’d meet a woman so enthralled by a hefty 15-horsepower steam driven tubular boiler, 50-horsepower generators, clarification boilers, a cane press and an evaporation system.

Sweet.