Wes Anderson is one of the most stylistically distinct directors working today. Be it stop-motion animation or using real, human actors, just one glance at a film’s color palette and framing is all you need in order to know if you’re watching a Wes Anderson movie (or one of his many imitators). For his latest work, The Phoenician Scheme, Anderson and a mostly new cast—save for Willem Dafoe and a few now recurrent stars—tell the story of Zsa-Zsa Korda, a wealthy business tycoon, who leaves his estate to his daughter, a nun.
Filming took place on location in and around Berlin, and as most film sets go, coffee is a requirement. Luckily the German capital is one of the world’s great coffee cities, and Five Elephant was tapped to provide coffee throughout the production. And that was only the beginning of the movie’s working relationship with the Berlin roaster, who have collaborated for The Official Air Korda Coffee Travel Set, available now from Five Elephant.
The new collab technically isn’t the first time these two have gotten together. Kris Schackman, Five Elephant’s co-founder, worked in the film industry in the late-90s/early-00s as a Location Manager in New York City. There, he helped scout locations for Anderson’s magnum opus, The Royal Tenenbaums. Fast forward 25 years and a Five Elephant team member’s fiancé is working on the latest Anderson film and, somewhat serendipitously, suggested them as the coffee caterer. One retrofitted 1960s trailer and La Marzocco Linea PB later, and Five Elephant is at every day of shooting, slinging espresso for the entire cast and crew.
And while the film is in the proverbial can, the fateful collaboration continues. Limited to just 72 in total, the Official Air Korda Coffee Travel Set is designed around the travel bag carried in the film by Lisle Korda, nun and daughter of Zsa-Zsa. Inside the hand-numbered satchel there is (I could do a whole Wes Anderson-style list montage here but it doesn’t quite translate to the written word, so please feel free to do one in your head): a ceramic mug and saucer by Acme—featuring both the Air Korda and Five Elephant logos—an Air Korda pencil and pencil sharpener, a coffee passport, a “map of speculative trade routes and known coordinates” that includes “markings linked to The Phoenician Scheme and its lesser-known coffee holdings,” and of course some coffee.
The coffee is an Heirloom variety, anaerobic natural from Ethiopia’s Guji Zone. Grown at 2,185MASL and processed at the Suke Drying Station, roasted for filter the coffee is sweet and has notes of dried stone fruit and clove.
The Official Air Korda Coffee Travel Set retails for €126.05 ($144USD) via the Five Elephant website. Or, you can snag a 250g bag of the coffee a la carte for €25.23 ($29USD).
For more information about the Official Air Korda Coffee Travel Set, written with the sort of verbal panache one would expect from a Wes Anderson collaboration, visit Five Elephant’s official website.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
