Coffee Cups Made of Coffee Grounds

March 25, 2022|by Ryde Jeavons

This isn't your preschool craft project. Global coffee consumption just continues to rise, and along with, a rise in coffee waste is apparent. Beyond re-usable cups and coffee composting, comes using coffee grounds to create solid and useful products. Insert Kaffeeform, a small Berlin based start-up that have developed a range of coffee cups and saucers made of used coffee grounds. Industrial design graduate, Julian Lechner, first began experimenting with coffee coffee grounds while studying in Bolzano, Italy. He picked them up from public bars with the intention to create something valuable from an existing resource that is usually discarded. Four years later the formula for Kaffeeform was perfected, one cup and saucer use up the waste from six consumed cups of espresso. A balance of plant fibers, coffee grounds, wood grains and biopolymers was determined, making the wares durable and dishwasher safe. Koffeeform is a recyclable product that is made up of only renewable resources, and 40% of the compound is coffee grounds sourced from local coffee shops. Of course the grounds are dried before use, to stop mould forming, then the other materials are added in the right quantity. Then the matter is poured into moulds under heat. It's said they even have a pleasant coffee smell. And if you're thinking that they could have perhaps used a more innovative visual design, stop right there. The intention was for the material to be the talking point, not the visual side of the coffee cups, which is why they ended up with the classic coffee cup and saucer design. Although we do think they look pretty cool, like some sort of cross between marble and stoneware. Unfortunately the cups aren't available in Australia yet, but we're putting them on our shopping list for our next European adventure.

Coffee Cups Made of Coffee Grounds

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