A twist is coming in Astoria’s journey towards the finals of the World Latte Art Championship and the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship to be held at Hotelex Shanghai. During the event, which will take place from the 29th March to the 1st April 2016, Astoria will present, on the stand of Chinese importer Render Coffee, a thirteenth Plus4Champions espresso machine decorated with ancient Chinese characters.
This will be the latest in a series of tributes paid to Chinese culture by the Italian company, the world’s leading producer of coffee machines and the official sponsor for the second year running of the two championships promoted by World Coffee Events.
The beautiful livery of the thirteenth Plus4Champions machine bears the signature of the internationally-renowned Italian calligrapher Carlo Buffa. Using the distinctive monochromatic Tensho script, the artist has reproduced a poem by Jia Dao dating from the Tang Dynasty.
Black ink on a white background adorning a red machine, a colour that in Chinese tradition have always been associated with the positive force, Yang: a choice which beautifully accentuates this strange and mysterious language, whose strokes – infinitely diverse in thickness, length and pattern – reveal wispy figures and stylised characters, congenial inhabitants of a wonderful and undeniably human world.
