These pictures are worth words.
Mocha Matcha Cafe This Midtown shop prints photos onto bubbly drinks, and the accuracy of the frothy reproduction gets customers on a caffeine high.
Nate Miles of Harlem was amazed at how similar the sculpture above his vanilla cappuccino looked to his original selfie, and quickly posted a photo of the liquid depiction to his Instagram Story.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect it to look exactly like the pictures. It’s amazing,” said an enthralled Miles, 33, who works as a property manager in a space in the same building as the coffee shop. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before. I’ve been a barista for years, and I’ve made art.”
After ordering their coffee, customers can scan a QR code to upload a photo, which is then sent directly to a machine dedicated to creating the artwork.
Once the barista has finished making your drink, they place it under the machine, and in less than a minute, a rendering of the photo is embossed into the drink’s foam in brown food coloring and served to you for an extra $1.
Mocha Matcha Cafe opened in October. Urban Space VanderbiltA food hall located at 230 Park Avenue in Midtown East near Grand Central Station.
Last week, they Urban Space at 570 Lexington AvenueThere is one in Midtown East too.
Most people order a latte or cappuccino, both $4.75, as their photogenic beverage of choice, but you can also opt for cold drinks like the iced cold brew for $4.50 or the iced latte for $5.75, as long as it has foam on top.
“I wasn’t expecting such amazing quality and detail,” an excited Rebecca Ani of Paramus, New Jersey, said, ordering a latte and uploading a photo of herself taken over Memorial Day weekend at Welch Lake in her hometown of Rochester.
“I think it would be a great gift for my colleagues. I have a lot of friends nearby so I’m going to tell them about it,” said Ani, 37, who works in product development at nearby beauty brand Shiseido.
Gabriela Rodriguez, social media manager for Moka Matcha Cafe, said not everyone chooses to have their photo recreated on a drink.
“A lot of people come in to have their dogs and cats photographed,” said Rodriguez, 38, who created a latte featuring a photo of himself and his dog, Sheldon, for The Washington Post.
“When we first opened, a girl Hello Kitty Latte And people went crazy.”
Rodriguez loves seeing the look on customers’ faces when they receive their decorated coffee cups.
“When they see coffee, they smile. They’re like, ‘Wow, that brings back memories of when I took the photo,'” she says. “They don’t even want to drink coffee.”
