Coffee Sen-chine

Coffee Sen-chine is a coffee machine designed around one aim: to match sight and sound to the cup, so that what the drinker sees and hears deepens what they taste. Instead of hiding the process inside a housing, the machine opens it across an aluminium frame — bean roulette, grinder, heater, pumps and glass brew chamber all exposed, joined by tubing and a light tube that carries colour between them, with a screen and speakers at the centre.

The premise is that flavour is not only tasted. The system translates the character of each bean — its sweetness, acidity, body and bitterness — into colour, moving image and music, so qualities usually left to the tongue arrive first through the eyes and ears.

The brew

Brewing starts at a hexagonal acrylic roulette holding beans of six flavours from six growing regions — Guatemala, Panama, Kenya, Ethiopia, Yunnan and Indonesia — each carrying its own colour. The drinker chooses one and pours it into the motor-driven grinder. A knob sets the water temperature; once the water is heated, pumps carry it through to brew. An LED light tube threads the parts together, shifting colour with the chosen bean and temperature and leading the drinker to the next step, so the machine is operated by following its light.

Sight and sound

On screen, the chosen coffee appears as a bean formed of particles: sweetness sets their colour, acidity their dispersion, body their velocity, bitterness their thickness. The music follows the same logic — each region carries its own traditional instruments, from the marimba of Guatemala to Indonesia’s talempong — and the loop and tone of the piece adjust to the chosen bean and to each step of the brew. By the time the coffee reaches the carafe, its flavour has already been seen and heard.