Ever strolled along the Thames and thought that lovely brown water would make a solid flat white? Or sipped a café au lait and pondered whether it lacked the Seine flavour? No, neither have we.
But it’s time to open your minds, folks, as this year at the Venice Biennale, coffee aficionados will have the chance to sample espresso made with water straight from the city’s canals.
Yes, you read that right. As reported by the New York Times, an offbeat project at this year’s Architecture Biennale will invite visitors to literally get a flavour of Venice in the form of a coffee made with water straight from the lagoon.
But don’t fret – espresso cups aren’t being dunked into the canals willy-nilly. Instead, the Canal Café, a project by New York-based design studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro, will be utilising some pretty swanky-sounding tech to purify canal water before our very eyes.
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The project was first thought up in 2008, but it’s taken until 2025 for it to actually materialise thanks to the development of more advanced filtration systems.
So, how will it work exactly? Well, the café will be installed outside and water will be drawn directly from the Arsenale Lagoon through clear pipes and split into two streams: one will be treated through reverse osmosis and ultraviolet disinfection, the other biologically through a ‘micro-wetland’ of salt-tolerant plants. Sciency, right?
After that, the two streams of water will re-join each other and – get this – Michelin-starred chef Davide Oldani will sample the combination and alter it to produce a distinct local flavour, as well as selecting the coffee blend to ‘deliver the most authentically Venetian taste’.
The project is ‘about combining the sort of pleasure of drinking beautiful espresso while also thinking about the complexity that it takes to actually have potable water,’ said Elizabeth Diller, co-founder of the studio. ‘I will drink the first cup of espresso, and I will be the guinea pig.’
The Canal Café can be found at the back of Arsenale, Venice’s former shipyard and one of the Biennale’s main sites.
Venice and climate change
Due to rising sea levels, Venice’s MOSE system, which was installed to protect the city from storm surges, will likely become obsolete in years to come, and some scientists predict that Venice itself will be entirely underwater by 2150.
Carlo Ratti, director of the 2025 Biennale, said that Venice won’t just be facing the challenge of too much water, but will also have to grapple with ensuring there is enough clean, drinkable water.
‘We could say that the project is a prototype of the global dilemmas we face in a time of increased climate change when our infrastructures must adapt,’ he said.
Read ’s guide to sustainable travel and how to be a better tourist here.
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