Karen has recreated works such as the Last Supper and Mona Lisa using this technique, and has plans to continue to make use of coffee as an artistic material for many other future projects.

Each work is personalised with a coffee cup to pay homage to the artist’s favourite beverage, and looking at the outcome, it’s easy to see why the works have been fetching anything up to £12,000.

See her in action here:

We have compiled a list of 5 of the most ‘interesting’ alternatives to your daily cup of Lavazza.

Oskri – This coffee substitute is in fact made entirely from barley – so it can be made in the U.K! If you want to try something different, then this is the way forward.

Kopi Luwak coffee – this coffee is made from the droppings of the Asian Palm Civet! The mammal eats coffee berries which are passed through its digestive tract. These droppings are then ‘harvested’ and made into coffee through an age-old traditional process. Literally translated from Vietnamese the resulting drink is known as ‘Weasel Coffee’. Yum.

Teeccino herbal coffee – it might not be for everyone, but herbal coffee is becoming more popular over the world as people try to wean themselves off the hard stuff! We aren’t the biggest fans but it seems appealing to some people at least.

Roasted Corn Coffee – apparently the ‘tastiest alternative to coffee’ (but still nothing close to the real thing!) It’s made of 100% corn…mmm!

Golden fields Dandelion and Burdock Coffee – We are slightly suspicious about drinking something that also claims to be the healer of skin diseases but it’s yet another alternative to your daily cup (or 9) of coffee.

10. Sexy, No, No, No- Girls Aloud: “Get him out for coffee, hell yeah!” The girls exclaim in yet another dance floor hit.


9. Nine to Five- Dolly Parton: So it’s not strictly coffee she’s sipping, but she does pour herself “a cup of ambition.”


8. Cappuccino- MC Lyte: MC Lyte’s rap is a tale of hindsight about a man who sees great cappuccinos being advertised in a cafe so he goes in to get one and finds himself in the middle of a drugs raid. He is mortally wounded in a shoot-out, despairing in the chorus: “Why, oh why did I need cappuccino?”


7. One More Cup of Coffee- Bob Dylan: This song, which has been covered by the White Stripes, was said to be inspired by a meeting with the King of the Gypsies, who turned out to just be an ordinary man living in a trailer.


6. Back for Good- Take That: “Got your lipstick marks still on your coffee cup,” The song that made millions of teenage (and not so teenage) girls swoon!


5. Coffee- Supersister: A cheeky play on the idea of ‘coming up for coffee,’ the song was released in 2000 by the all-girl trio (not to be confused with the Dutch 60s band Supersister).


4. Black Coffee- All Saints: The clue’s in the title on the female foursome’s 2000 hit single.


3. Drops of Jupiter- Train: Whilst the reference to coffee is only small: “The best soy latte that you ever had, and me;” the song is so well loved that we have given it the number 3 position.


2. Tom’s Diner- Suzanne Vega: The song, which has be released, remixed and re-released several times in the last couple of decades, centres around a woman sitting at the counter in a diner and trying to get a decent cup of coffee: “I am waiting at the counter for the man to pour the coffee and he fills it only halfway and before I even argue he is looking out the window at somebody coming in.”


1. Coffee and TV- Blur: Britain’s foremost indie band sings about the perfect cure for modern life.


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10. Lily Allen- Frequently found meandering through Camden, cigarette in one hand, cardboard coffee cup in the other the morning after the night before- coffee’s not the only thing you like drinking Lily!

9. Marcia Cross- The Desperate Housewives star can’t resist an iced caffeine fix when she’s out and about.

8. Rhys Ifans- Often to be found supping on a hot cup of coffee and reading the paper in the Electric Cafe on London’s Portobello Road on a lazy Sunday morning.

7.  Miss J Alexander- Tyra Banks’ right hand man on America’s Next Top Model can’t help but strike a pose when he’s snapped cup in hand.

6. Lindsey Lohan- The actress frequently begins her day with a takeaway coffee.

5. Shia LeBeouf- The Indiana Jones star reportedly lives off a nutritious diet of cigarettes and black coffee.

4. Mischa Barton- Regularly to be found sipping on a tall frappe (hold the cream), Mischa has frequently been photographed grabbing her coffee fix with our number 3, pal Nicole Richie.

3. Nicole Richie- Nicole is often to be found strolling around the LA area with a hot takeaway coffee in hand on the arm of boyfriend Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden.

2. Mary-Kate Olsen- One half of the Olsen twins, Mary-Kate reportedly downs two to four Starbucks iced coffees per day. “I remember at 10 sneaking my own coffee and pouring a ton of sugar in and going up to the playroom and drinking it,” Olsen told W magazine in January 2006.

1. Britney Spears- Incessantly pictured gulping down a large cream-topped Starbucks frappucino, this is one luxury Britney wouldn’t give up when she went into training for her Circus tour. After her divorce she was reportedly drinking several every day- a tidy profit to the coffee giant!

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10. Friends: Not an episode went by without the show’s stars languishing across the ancient orange sofa and sipping coffee from oversized mugs in Central Perk. The infamous coffee shop provided the perfect backdrop to the entire series.

9. Frasier- As America’s most discerning coffee drinkers, you wouldn’t find Frasier and brother Niles in Starbucks. They preferred the superior quality of Cafe Nervosa every morning.

8. The Sopranos- Everyone’s favourite Italian mafia series- when they weren’t killing each other they were getting coffee.

7. Blackadder III – Take a trip through Georgian London to Mrs Miggins’ Coffee Shop where you can purchase the “finest cup of hot water with brown grit in it, unless, by some miracle, your coffee shop has actually started selling coffee.”

6. Sex and the City: After the Cosmopolitans comes the coffee- the fabulous foursome were regularly to be found at their favourite uptown coffee shop.

5. The IT Crowd Coffee is a feature of every office, but in this one you’re liable to lose your coffee mug, even if it has got your face printed on the bottom, have hot coffee flung down your front as a practical joke and be forced to surrender the shirt off your back because the ancient coffee lady’s had a little turn and needs to be kept warm.

4. Neighbours Who doesn’t have fond memories of Harold Bishop standing behind the counter in Erinsborough’s only coffee shop, complete with girlie apron and bow tie.

3. Loose Women Four ‘ladies’ of a certain age sitting about, glugging coffee and gossiping- every man’s worst nightmare.

2. Adrian Mole – The Cappuccino Years The BBC adaptation of the bestselling book by Sue Townsend follows the struggling Adrian through an ever more embarrassing series of awkward episodes.

1. Scrubs How would the Sacred Heart’s doctors and nurses survive eighteen hour shifts without regular trips down to the cafeteria for coffee and chocolate cake?

10. Amelie: Professional do-gooder Amelie engineers the frisson between cafe regular Joseph and tobacconist Georgette by spilling coffee all over her so she’ll dash to the bathroom while he’s in there.  Not to forget her clever use of the coffee steamer to disguise the vociferous nature of their.. erm.. ‘fun’.


9. You’ve Got Mail: Tom Hanks gives a rousing speech on the ‘higher’ purpose of Starbucks for the indecisive of society: “The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.”


8. Dante’s Peak- In the midst of a major natural disaster, Linda Hamilton’s character sets about wooing Pierce Brosnan with endless cups of coffee from her coffee shop which she personally delivers. Later in the film he admits: “I’ve never cared for your coffee.”


7. The Bucket List- Jack Nicholson’s character has a taste for the finer things in life, including one of the world’s most expensive coffees known as Kopi Luwak. Having refused to drink the coffee, Morgan Freeman later reveals it’s unpalletable origins: the coffee is made from the excrement of an Indonesian marsupial (the Luwak).


6. Best In Show: This movie pokes fun at the horrifying ubiquitous nature of the Starbucks coffee shop: “We met at Starbucks. Not at the same Starbucks but we saw each other at different Starbucks across the street from each other.”


5. Heat: The film that finally sees De Niro and Pacino on camera at the same time, even though they had both already starred in Godfather II. The movie culminates in a scene where the two adversaries reflect on their chosen paths over coffee in a truly memorable film moment.


4. The Devil Wears Prada: Never has an actress spent so much time running across New York collecting endless cups of hot Starbucks as Anne Hathaway for her nightmare of a boss, Runway Magazine’s Editor in Chief.


3. The Big Heat: In one of the most gruesome movie moments ever, the sadistic and cold-blooded Vince Stone throws a pan of boiling coffee over his girlfriend’s face. The audience never see the attack as the camera stays fixed on the stove the pan has been snatched from, however we hear her screams as the coffee splatters across her cheek, permanently disfiguring her.


2. Pulp Fiction: In a rush to clean up the ‘mess’ in their car, Vega (John Travolta) and Winnfield (Samuel L Jackson) head to Jimmie’s place. Whilst Winnfield compliments Jimmie on his exceptional coffee, Jimmie dismisses him: “I buy the gourmet expensive stuff because when I drink it I want to taste it. But you know what’s on my mind right now? It AIN’T the coffee in my kitchen!”


1. When Harry Met Sally: Who could forget the infamous coffee shop scene in which Meg Ryan really shows off her lung capacity. The scene culminates in the immortal line: “I’ll have what she’s having.”


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Bean to cup coffee machines are a revolutionary piece of equipment that dramatically speed up the coffee making process. These machines produce a consistent quality of drink compared to espresso machines which produce coffee of varying quality depending on the barista. Bean to cup coffee machines were first developed in order to standardise coffee-making, ensuring every customer enjoyed coffee of the same quality and there were no discrepancies from one cup to the next.

Bean to cup coffee machines are filled with whole freshly roasted beans in order to create a clean, aromatic taste. Often coffee produced from machines that use ‘pods’ of coffee have a slightly synthetic taste as the ingredients used are not fresh and are frequently vacuum packed.

The bean to cup coffee machine eliminates the need for any grinding of coffee beans or boiling of water by hand as is necessary with an espresso machine. The coffee machine is plumbed into a fixed water supply by a qualified technician.

The roasted beans are poured straight from the bag into a hopper (usually located at the top of the machine) and the machine grinds them as required, adds water, milk and generates a ‘crema layer’ (a thin sheet of froth that sits on the surface of the coffee). However, it should be noted that the coffee produced will only ever be as good as the beans used – poor quality beans will create poor-quality coffee so it’s worth investing in the best possible raw materials.

Unlike other coffee machines, bean to cup coffee machines have the added benefit of being designed to add the milk to the coffee as well, from a reservoir located within the machine.  This saves time and ensures speedy and consistent service as opposed to steaming the milk by hand using an espresso machine.

Many of these bean to cup coffee machines offer the user more than just coffee. Along with various types of coffee (espresso, cappuccino, latté) some can also make hot chocolate and deliver hot water for teas and other hot drinks. More technologically advanced bean to cup coffee makers also offer customers a choice of bean. Many machines also come with multifunction buttons that can be programmed to the user’s specific requirements (to add more milk or a double shot of espresso, for example).

Bean to cup coffee machines can be found in a wide variety of places including restaurants, cafes, office cafeterias, hospital waiting areas and, more recently, homes as the idea of gourmet coffee has spread.