While some people might be trying to get you to delete your Instagram food pics, there are many, many more tinkering around in their high-tech laboratories trying to figure out how to make you post even more food porn. One of the most successful of the latter is Dayne Levinrad, a marketing exec and barista at The Grind Company in Johannesburg, South Africa. If you have been on Instagram at all in the past year, you've probably come across his brainchild: #coffeeinacone. According to ExtraCrispy.com, the hashtag has been used more than 1,500 times in just the past six weeks.
It's no coincidence that these perfect pours of espresso in a chocolate-lined waffle cone are internet famous. "We used the cone as a way to become an Instagrammable product," Levinrad told CNN. "When people come in, they take a selfie and tag #coffeeinacone."
In order to combine those universal loves — coffee, chocolate, and ice cream — Levinrad quickly realized you couldn't just pour hot liquid into a regular cone. "We bought our own machine and started rolling our own wafer cones, using different flours, but the chocolate still melted. We couldn't have any leakage."
The process that worked, which involves four different compounds of chocolate, gives you a full 10 minutes to admire your drink's beauty, snap a photo, and sip before the whole thing degrades in your hands. Levinrad says it's under patent.
Still, a viral success like that is bound to be copied. Now, when you browse through the #coffeeinacone pics, there are versions popping up in New Zealand, Los Angeles, and Berlin — and one can only imagine that it's coming to a café near you soon enough.
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