One Million Coffee Beans

 

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cthoyes /Foter

What would you do with a million coffee beans? Probably nothing quite as visually artistic as the mosaic created by Albanian artist, Saimir Strati. Strati, who has created mosaics that landed him in the Guinness Book of Records five times in the past, has made it into the records a sixth time with a mosaic made entirely of coffee beans -- raw and roasted in shades from New England to Vienna roast. The coffee bean mosaic, which depicts four musicians and a dancer -- each from a different continent -- measures 25.1 square meters (269 square feet).

Strati's coffee bean mosaic was sponsored by Lori Kafe, one of Albania's largest coffee roasters, and uses more than 300 pounds of coffee beans to portray the message, "One world, one family, over a cup of coffee." The five figures include a dancer from Brazil, a drummer from Japan, a country singer from the U.S., an accordion player from Europe and a drummer from Africa. Strati's coffee bean mosaic has been in the news and in the blogs frequently over the past few months, so a quick Google image search will bring up many pictures of the artist and the mosaic in progress -- a pretty amazing thing.

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Having seen what this artist is capable of doing using the most unusual media (paintbrushes, industrial screws, nail heads) I can't help wondering if the beans are all of the same variety or if he poked through the Lori Kafe stores and specified which beans he wanted roasted to which intensity -- or if he supplied a "color list" to the roasters, who then got to work their own artistry to match the colors he specified. I know I'm probably overthinking this, but it's fun to imagine the conversations between the artist and the roasters.

And -- do you think he ever brewed up some of his art media for his afternoon coffee break?