“Hi, yes, I’d like a Caramel Macchiato upside down, please. Oh, and can you also make sure my espresso is upside down as well?” is now a thing you can say at Starbucks. Well, at one Starbucks at least. The Roy Street location in Seattle is now the home of the Phantom, a Starbucks-designed bottom-filling espresso machine.
As reported by StarbucksMelody.com, the “unofficial Starbucks news & culture” blog, the Phantom has been at the Roy Street location since February 20th and is the only location where it can be found as of yet. The Roy Street Starbucks is an experimental location, making it a fitting home for the one-of-a-kind machine that “enhances the theater and experience for the customer by removing the barrier of a large box between the customer and the barista.” And as you can see in the video, the minimalist espresso machine is not short on theatrics.
So while the Phantom looks great, it still remains to be seen if the upside down espresso is somehow tastier than its right side up counterpart. One thing is for certain, though: we may not know who and we may not know when, but someone’s getting a hot Phantom purge to the face.
Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.
*all media via StarbucksMelody.com
