I get a kick out of finding entire ecosystems around tech we never knew we needed .... like today’s “Bev Top Media Platform” grouping. “What” you might be asking, “What is a Bev Top Media platform? And should it be part of my 21st century lifestyle?”

Let me translate ... we’re talking about printers that use edible ink to print on top of foam. Yes, foam as in the foam on your cappuccino, beer, or other beverage. This multi-vendor industry lets you drop a logo on the latte or a freshly-snapped selfie in the Guinness.

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Seriously, I cannot make this up — for a decade or so our forward looking society has had the cutting edge ability to serve you a drink featuring ... your very own face. Or a promotional message. Or a vendor logo. Ripples, a self-described pioneer in the industry, cheerfully tells you this tech lets food and beverage, hospitality, and event businesses “turn an ordinary drink into an innovative canvas.”

The tech has reached its v2 stage, with add-ons that turn this moment’s phone photo into the next moment’s beverage or make on-the-fly custom messaging an on-demand feature. I’m wondering if there’s a bar somewhere that lets potential pickups share contact info via foam?

About as personal as it gets

The core concept of printing on food seems to have emerged as quickly as the concept of personal printing. For years, edible paper and edible ink have delivered cookies, cakes, and sugary sweets featuring logos, your fur baby’s photo, and your grandparents' wedding portrait for a plethora of event treats. In fact, the first U.S. patent for edible papers landed in 1981 — but it took a few more decades for clever marketers to realize that you and your bestie might want to get your pints topped with your own smiling mugs, tagged with a branded message.

The Cino Coffee Print X product represents the latest from a company called 3D Innovation Technology. “You will give each customer the opportunity to receive their selfiecino, becoming the protagonist of the new Latte art trend! The work of the bartender has never been so innovative!” it chirps in its promotional material. The server can snap a photo of the customer with a mobile phone and less than 20 seconds later have it appear on a newly frothed coffee drink, milkshake, yogurt, or beer. The beverage, nestled in its serving container, gets placed on a small lift which rises into the printer unit, where edible ink sprays the surface. Instantly customized media platform!

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Over at iView, the Picasso Printer Smart Art printer does much the same, while reminding you that smoothies and beer both make printing surfaces — and says it can handle cookies and cakes as well. Coffee Colorato brings the Coloranino printer to the party, claiming (in rather poorly written marketing prose) that at your cafe “you need real personalised (sic) drinks to really stand out these days.”

I could keep listing vendors – and that’s what really astonishes me! It seems there’s a whole industry around printing on your drink. I don’t know about you, but I have never once looked at my coffee and thought “Gee, that would taste better if it had a picture on the foam.” Yet, in a world where everything seems to have become a “platform,” we should hardly be surprised.

Bread is the latest medium

And it wasn’t just drinks! There’s a company name OnBread which bluntly states: “Our vision: Turn bread into a media” Its custom ovens deploy a technology that uses heat in the baking process to sear a message into rolls and loaves, making a brand a literal, well, brand. I thought at first this must be a spoof site, but the Israeli company seems to exist — or at least did exist pre-pandemic. It felt spectacularly creepy to think of eating a crusty roll with a logo burned into it.

I confess I got a little weirdly obsessed for a few hours and went down the digital rabbit hole to discover wedding drinks with a photo of the happy couple, trade show event drinks with a logo of the sponsor, weird messages from baristas as part of some type of coffee house promotion — and then I stumbled into another layer of products!

Over at printadrink.com, the gallery shows droplets floating in a drink to create ... art? Well, at least patterned mixed drinks. Sugar Lab uses 3D printing to turn sugar, bitter, and botanicals into drink garnishes ...and I have to say that its description sounds wicked fun — I don’t know if a market exists, but wouldn’t it be an awesome way to spend the work day in “the world’s first true digital bakery, run by a small team of rogue chefs, architects-turned-designers, and tech geeks in East Los Angeles."

Once a technology matures, all sort of fusion applications start happening. Ink jet printers brought low cost personal printing to the masses ... A Serious Business. But edible inks and creative substrates? I guess it proves once again that you just can never tell where tech will take you.

Teresa Martin of Eastham lives, breathes and writes about the intersection of technology, business and humanity.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Opinion/Martin: Printing on food trend turns lattes or beer into selfies