Selfies reach a new level with photo-imprinted whipped cream.
You stop in your tracks.
Did you just see what you thought you saw?
A lady sipping a coffee with her selfie on the fluffy white stuff on top.
She just drank her own face!
This new selfie coffee is the invention of Farsh Kanji and David Weiss, two guys who met at a silent meditation retreat in Thailand and turned their partnership into edible ink gold.
Flavorless, edible ink is printed on whipped cream for the Selffee coffee drink. Image via Selffee promo video
“We were trying to figure out smart phones and food,” said Kanji at the Collision Conference in New Orleans. “That’s where we thought, ‘We can come up with something.’”
They did come up with something—an idea, a machine, a business where they take your selfie and print it onto whipped cream topping on an iced coffee, or onto a sugar cookie.
“It’s mad funny!” exclaimed Kanji.
“It’s a net positive on joy,” Weiss said. “The end user is actually affected in a really beneficial way and it is joy.”
Archer News is looking at tech start-ups at the 2017 Collision Conference in New Orleans.
Check out the Virtual Reality for Schools start-up here. And why some tech start-ups put you at risk here from our 2016 coverage.
Selffee co-founder Farsh Kanji holds up selfie cookies at the Collision Conference in New Orleans. Image credit: Archer News
This is yourself on selfies
It’s not just mad funny, it’s mad meta—a world turning in on itself.
Are we so consumed with ourselves that we want to consume ourselves? Are we crazy to drink our selfies?
We asked Kanji for answers.
“Are we crazy just to take a selfie? ‘Cause wasn’t that kind of weird at first?” Kanji told Archer News. “It’s like, ‘Oh, man, I’m taking a photo of myself with my phone. I don’t want you to take it, I want me to take it.”
Now, we’ve gone even further.
“I want me to take it and now I want to eat me,” he added. “So maybe it’s an extension of that.”
Selffee cookies on display at the Collision Conference in New Orleans. Image credit: Archer News
How we got here
They call their business Selffee—as you guessed, a combo of “selfie” and “coffee.”
But they’re not selfie addicts, the two said.
“We’re actually the least selfie people ever,” Weiss said. “We took one selfie in front of Buckingham Palace together.”
The company says its edible selfie printer uses FDA certified ink. Image via Selffee
Before portrait pour-overs, Weiss worked in sales in the wholesale sweater trade in New York, he said.
Kanji straightened out people’s backs as a chiropractor with a wellness center.
After their three-day silent meditation retreat, they looked for new ventures.
They found this—doppio Dopplegangers so over-the-top that they can bring out strong reactions in those who partake.
“They ‘wild out,’ or they’re stunned, or they’re like, ‘Man, this is too weird,’” Kanji said.
“In their head, they’re like, ‘This is crazy!’ Or they’re like, ‘This is too narcissistic. I can’t handle it. Isn’t that weird eating myself?’” he explained. “And some people just get right to it. It’s just fun seeing people how they interact with—I guess—themselves.”
A man drinking a coffee drink with his edible selfie printed on the whipped cream topping. Image via Selffee
Long shot?
For now, Kanji and Weiss bring their coffee selfie machine to weddings, bar mitzvahs and corporate events, as well as the occasional public happening.
“It’s basically iced coffee on the bottom and then we put a thin layer of whipped cream on top, and we print directly onto the whipped cream,” he said.
Online, you’d have to settle for selfie cookies.
“It’d be really difficult to mail you a coffee and for it to stay,” Kanji said.
A woman shows her partially-eaten selfie cookie. Image via Selffee promo video
Their selfie coffee vision includes the entire country.
“I think everyone would definitely do it once. And if you do it, you’re kind of like, ‘This would be amazing at a party!’” Kanji said.
Their next step—find investors who will help them take Selffee to 20 or more big markets across the U.S.
They hope the Collision Conference, featuring start-ups from around the world, will earn them some financial attention.
Inception
The pair is well aware of the philosophical ripples their “face-presso” can stir up. After all, they met while meditating in silence for 72 hours straight.
A selfie lives on in social media, showing the world where you are and where you’ve been.
A selfie coffee disappears in an instant—unless you take a selfie of yourself with your selfie coffee.
That can set off a selfie chain reaction.
A coffee drinker takes a selfie of himself sipping a beverage with an edible selfie on it. Image via Selffee promo video
“First of all, you take the photo with the smart phone. Then it gets printed with the technology,” Kanji said. “Once the product comes out, then you’re going to use your phone again to take the photo of the photo on the food. You’re going to take a selfie with the selfie cookie.”
That’s not all.
“Then you take a photo with your selfie,” Weiss added. “Then we put that on a cookie, then we put that on a coffee. You drink that. We take a photo of that, we put it on a ramekin of butter, and then you just kind of spread that on your sourdough.”
“That’s too much,” Kanji said, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t go for that.”
Still, you might want to get your order ready, say, a triple-shot mocha latte with one pump of sugar-free vanilla and this picture I just took of myself in line holding my last selfie drink.
A picture of a cookie with a picture of a boy holding a cookie with his picture on it. Image via Selffee
All-Americano
Kanji and Weiss take more selfies now. And they eat them, too.
They’re balancing their futures on the backs of our fronts.
Selfie drinker looks up from his coffee. Image via Selffee promo video
They still enjoy watching people enjoy their “face food” when they barista a pop-up in New York City or entertain at a private event.
“I’m looking at someone’s face. I’m not even looking at the drink any more. ‘Cause I want to see what’s going on in their head,” Kanji said.
“I think it’s just people’s, like, wilding out,” he said. “When you see someone respond, it still doesn’t get old.”
Main image: Selffee promotional video. Image via Selffee