Selfie in The Tea Terrace, London.
We had seen (almost) everything in latte art. Bears, hearts, botany, Star Wars characters and even Ryan Gosling's face. Anything unimaginable suddenly appeared in the coffee foam at the hands of expert baristas and with the help of machines like the Ripple Maker. Until now. The era of the selfieccino has arrived. Selfie-what? Or, what is the same, drink your face in a cafe.
How do you read it? If having a decaffeinated coffee from a machine, with soy milk and stevia to sweeten it, in a glass –not a cup–, did not seem like a personalized enough breakfast, the selfieccino has arrived to mark a before and after in the form of enjoy this morning pick-me-up. Now you will not only be able to show off the little drawing on duty, but you will be the king of Instagram by sharing your personalized cappuccino with nothing more and nothing less than your face imprinted on the coffee foam.
You will be the king of Instagram as soon as you share your Selfieccino
The pioneer has been Ehab Shouly, the visionary at the head of The Tea Terrace in London. If before the public went to this cute cafeteria to have tea among furniture that mixes Rococo and Victorian styles, Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella, now they will do so to sign up for the latest crazy gastronomic trend of the moment: the selfieccino.
Shouly can't stop creating. This summer he had the idea of adding to his 'tea room', inside the House of Fraser on Oxford Street, two vintage golden floats (upon reservation and at a price of 15 pounds per person). There are even some days that Cinderella herself poses for the usual photo... But it was now, last December, when he rose to fame with this barista-trend that we are sure will make him the king of social media . Because that's what pioneers do, right?
Feel, even if it's only during a lunch, like Cinderella.
“We have always been innovators in the restaurant industry. We think they need new ideas to keep customers interested. As well as being the first restaurant to introduce the golden carriages where customers can sit and eat, we were also the first to use locked boxes where diners can lock their mobiles to enjoy conversation during lunch," comments Ehab Shouly.
Regarding the selfieccino, he adds: “We used to sell a lot of cakes and cupcakes with photos printed on them. So we thought it would be great if we could actually do it over coffee or hot chocolate for a barista-like look. printers that can print on cappuccino foam.” And so the selfieccino was born, a term they have invented and trademarked.
British tea time has never been so cute.
We tell you how it works. The printer uses fine nozzles that supply food coloring from a cartridge that is mounted in the printing apparatus. As a lifelong printer, come on. The food color is injected pixel by pixel to create the image. Once your best face has been captured, you send the photo via Wi-Fi to the printer and in about 90 seconds you have your face on the coffee foam. You can also send any photo: of your pet, a phrase, a logo... The result is incredible to say the least.
“Our customers love it. People love the idea of drinking their face! The selfieccino brings them something unique and crazy to post on Instagram or Snapchat. We've had two clients propose to their partners with the 'Marry Me' selfie and both women said yes. There was also a Qatari client who came alone, but asked for five selfies with the portraits of his five children. He took photos of everyone and sent them to Qatar. Then he drank one and left the other four”, Ehab Shouly tells us.
Selfieccino 'made in' Slovakia.
London was the first, but just a few days later, two more coffee shops, one in Rotterdam and one in Bratislava, jumped on the selfieccino craze.
In the capital of Slovakia, Mayo Galuska of Five Points Coffee got his hands on a “coffee printer,” as he calls it, and has started hitting selfieccino hard. Like in London, you send your photo to the machine and it prints it on the cappuccino. Here the normal coffee is worth 1.90 euros and when you add your photo it is 2.40 euros. The best? “We can also print on beer, ice cream and cookies”, comments May. Can you imagine what the nets would burn if we began to see cartoons in the foam of the beer? We wish you a sure success. And not only do they print your selfie, but they can reproduce complete photos –including landscapes– and even the logo of the most popular magazine. Ours, of course.
We have already tried our selfieccino. You are already late.
In Rotterdam, Nejan Doganer, owner of Amada Coffee (which opened on December 26), saw the machine for the first time in Asia during a trip. “We were excited by the idea of being able to transfer this concept to Europe, to the café that we were about to open. It wasn't easy, because they didn't want to export it, but after tough negotiations we were able to buy it and bring it to the Netherlands,” he says. “First we prepare the cappuccino, to later put the cup under the machine, send the photo and wait. In just three seconds we do magic”, he concludes it.
From here we make an appeal to Spanish cafeterias. We also want to wake up with our face printed on the coffee, we also deserve our selfieccino!
Amada Coffee needs only three seconds to work magic on the cappuccino.
IN DATA
Address: 5th Floor, House of Fraser 318 Oxford St, London
Telephone: +44 0844 8003752
Schedule: from 9:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Price: selfieccino about 8 euros
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