On Saturday, February 7, Accademia took part in Fuori di Taste 2026 with Coffee PortrAIts, a special event that invited the public to explore coffee through a new language, where art, technology, and sensory experience come together.
An experience designed to convey the aromatic complexity of coffee by going beyond the boundaries of traditional tasting and experimenting with new forms of visual and sensory storytelling.
Facets of Aromas and Flavors
At the heart of the event was the exhibition Facets of Aromas and Flavors, a visual journey composed of eight images generated through artificial intelligence, each dedicated to one of the eight basic aromatic families of coffee: floral, fruity, chocolate, dried fruit, spicy, sweet, nuts, and fermented.
The images translate olfactory and tactile sensations into evocative compositions, offering a visual key to understanding and recognizing coffee aromas. A project born from a question as simple as it is ambitious: can you photograph an aroma?
From this question emerged the work developed together with photographer Giancarlo Barzagli, a long-standing collaborator of Accademia. Entrusting artificial intelligence with the task of interpreting and visualizing a sensory experience represents a challenge aimed at achieving a representation that is as universal as possible—capable of stimulating the imagination and opening new perspectives in the storytelling of coffee.
A Multisensory Journey Through Coffee, Food, and Wine
Alongside the exhibition, Coffee PortrAIts offered a multisensory tasting featuring eight coffees—one for each aromatic family—paired with four gastronomic proposals and four selected wines.
Each pairing was designed to represent and enhance a pair of aromas, creating connections between different worlds and fostering a broader understanding of coffee’s nuances. A journey intertwining sight, smell, and taste, bringing together the language of coffee with that of cuisine and wine.
