In pictures: London’s skyscrapers look uncannily like these coffee machines

Sometimes only a cliche will do. The fact that luxury coffee machines look like London skyscrapers is a truth as old as time itself, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth revisiting. Come with us as we dissect the striking resemblance between London’s cloudgrazers and the latest caffeine-dispensing tech.

Take at look at the silver Ratio Six. Isn’t the first thing that comes to mind the iconic Lloyd’s of London building at 1 Lime Street?

Both are glistening silver, utilitarian structures bolstered by high tech and an innovative design. One is home to the world’s largest insurance institution; the other dispenses world-class coffee with a push of a button.

Now, consider the white Niche grinder. It is, is it not, spookily similar to Fenchurch Street’s Walkie Talkie building.

This hunk of metal, colloquially known as the Fryscraper, boasts the same distinctive curves as this 63mm conical burr coffee grinder with premium Mazzer burrs. And not only curves, but the same threatening sunlight-triggered death ray. It does make sense. After all, the Niche grinder is kept indoors for a reason: to prevent it from melting cars.

The Hario V60 references the Gherkin.

That is if the Gherkin cut itself in half and then stacked the bottom half on top of the top. And it’s that kind of dynamic thinking that really encapsulates the spirit of the V60 Glass Coffee Dripper: why use a perfectly good cafetiere for your morning brew when you can get the same result using an adrenaline-filled jenga-style assembly of myriad glass parts?

An E1 Prima has the angle of the Cheesegrater – and it’s not going unnoticed.

Free climbers often scale the heights of the iconic Leadenhall Building, also known as the Cheesegrater. Less reported upon but equally true, if you look closely at the E1 Prima’s seductively smooth sides, you will see dozens of mini mountaineers scrambling its surfaces. In both structures, all standards are challenged and exceeded. Naturally, this covers performance, control, extraction flexibility, lightness and compactness.

The Opus Conical Burr grinder looks like Tower 42, nobody can deny. 

Tall, dark and handsome, the Conical Burr is at your service grinding 7-11, perhaps in tribute to the Natwest bankers who originally inhabited Tower 42. A bird’s eye view of the tower, shaped to resemble the Natwest logo, offers a moving sight, just like the Conical Burr, which from above gives a dazzling glimpse of your coffee beans of choice, just before they are pulverised. This “do-it-all grinder for brew-it-all homes” has inclusivity as its core, much like the lender which has remained partially taxpayer-owned since the GFC; sharing is caring, after all. 

The Can of Ham has a similar profile to the Nespresso Zenius. Indeed, it’s rumoured there is an IP war waging between the designers.

So yes, the Can might be new (having opened in 2019) but that doesn’t mean its design didn’t already exist in coffee machine format. I mean, think about it: both boast an iconic curved hood on top of a stylish, sweeping body. Indeed, is it not suspiciously convenient that the so-called Can of Ham has chosen to masquerade under the nickname of a different foodstuff, perhaps in the hope of averting attention from its true source of inspiration: Nespresso’s inaugural gift to the caffeine-hungry world in 1986. All we’re saying is, it’s not hard to imagine where this furious legal case will end, and it simply doesn’t look pretty for the designers behind 70 St Mary Axe, Foggo Associates.