Ritual
2024
Personal project
About Ritual
Coffee is a ritual, not a routine.
This was the guiding statement when I started working on this project.
Designed for LeManoosh and coffee company Wacaco, this project serves to reimagine the outdoor coffee drinking experience. As a reference, I used Wacaco’s Pipamoka portable coffee maker that uses pressure brewing to brew coffee.
My goal was to keep the pressure brewing mechanism intact and try to puzzle how the experience of brewing coffee outdoors could be made more relaxing and enriching making people want to slow down and focus on the ritual of brewing and drinking coffee and forget about their otherwise busy lives.
This project was tackled on two fronts, 1. the user experience driven by my understanding of the Pipamoka coffee machine and people’s struggles with portable coffee makers in general and 2. reflect the experience in an aesthetically pleasing embodiment.
How can the outdoor coffee brewing and drinking experience be made more enriching for people who love outdoor activities?
Ease of use & the essence of coffee brewing
Looking at the Pipamoka, it is clear that the twisting movement to apply brewing pressure could be interpreted differently. The original wrist-based twisting mechanism was understood to be somewhat tedious and stressful on the wrist. This needed a new approach.
While the Pipamoka is designed as a portable coffee maker for drinking coffee on the go, my new approach involved dialling it back a bit and relooking at how the original emotion of coffee could be brought back. This involved slowing down, relaxing and enjoying the process of making and drinking coffee.
What are some ways that coffee making and drinking on the go can be made more relaxing, enjoyable and something you look forward to?
Inspired by the environment it’s meant to be used in. Nature.
One of the goals for this concept was to approach the aesthetics from a very organic point while still ensuring it felt like a capable product that could make coffee. Considering it is a product that is meant to be held by human hands, it needed to look like it was designed for human hands. For this purpose, inspiration was drawn from objects occurring in nature such as smooth pebbles. The resultant form is inviting, peaceful and does not stand out in a garish way when placed on a tree stump or just on grass.
A physical campfire, an experience to be shared
Coffee brings people together to talk about life, relax and introspect. To bring people together around the coffee maker, the compact tray was introduced.
The gyroscopic tray works almost like a physical fireplace since this is where the coffee maker and its docked cup rest. Setting the tray down on a surface stimulates you to sit and rest for a while. An integrated heating element in the tray boils water inside the coffee maker itself while you grind the coffee.
The docked cup ensures that you can always share coffee with someone so they can enjoy the experience out of their own vessel. If you are alone, just pour one out anyway, you don’t have to drink out of the coffee maker.
A touch of sophistication. The branch
The branch-shaped crank replaces the wrist-powered twisting mechanism of the original Pipamoka to ensure that the coffee-making experience feels comfortable and looks elegant, almost like a trance-like activity.
