Caffeine jolt jam

Coffee. Art.

Travel.

They make up quite a funky trinity for the saintly vagabond’s life. Caffeine comes like a shot of courage for us to face the morning. (Try this: put on a Stax record and drink your favorite brew — you’d swear you could rule the world.) Art is one of the holy signposts in our wayward life. (Try this: buy a set of acrylics and paint the inexpressible.) And travel takes us from one point to another, gives us joy and epiphanies in all this pointlessness. (Those feet were made for wandering the earth.)

These three concepts came together during the recent launch of Victorinox’s latest travel gear at R.O.X. Bonifacio High Street by way of a coffee art exhibition sponsored by Alamid Café Xpress featuring leading practitioners of the craft.

Welcome to the jungle: A coffee painting by Ella Hipolito

You could say that travel, coffee, and art merge in this eye-opening interaction.

Victorinox brand associate Stephanie Elumba explained, “We are launching the Seefeld collection — a more casual luggage line. Since the Seefeld is all about versatility, we wanted to launch it in a way that would highlight the versatility of, say, coffee. Coffee is not just a comforting drink; it can be used in creating art, innovatively.”

Not quite a stretch it seems since innovation, Elumba stressed, is one of the pillars of the Victorinox brand, the company behind the Original Swiss Army knife. And Alamid Café Xpress, with a shop at R.O.X., is run by a family of inveterate travelers; their business germinated from their travels around the country, sharing the same passion for coffee with locals they met on their trips.

Alamid Café Xpress provided the coffee beans for the artists who used the organic medium in creating amazing artworks.

Mounting this coffee art exhibit is also one way of encouraging cultural tourism. Not just the kind of tourism where you take photos of landmarks, you partake of the cuisine, and you buy the obligatory keychain and XL shirt; but about knowing what makes a particular place special and letting that place inspire you, touch your creative spaces, gives you the feeling of a sort of homecoming.

Elumba said, “The Philippines — because of our different climates and types of land — is one of the few countries that can produce all four varieties of coffee (Arabica, Robusta, Excelsa, and Liberica). Alamid Café Xpress has been so supportive (of our project), varying the heat of the roasting so as to provide different colored beans (and powder) for the artists.”  

The coffee-art exhibit, which is on view until June 10 at R.O.X, features artists such as Lito Ballaran, Brando Bati, Ella Hipolito, Jerel Limayo, Kathleen Lei Limayo, Mike Melchor, Dante Palmes, and Jenifer Romulo who have rendered their own landscape interpretations of Seefeld, a scenic place in Switzerland, where the new Victorinox was named after.

Even the author Igan D’Bayan tries his hand at doing coffee art.

“Seefeld is quite a rustic place,” explained Darwin Bañez, Primer Group of Companies assistant vice president and general manager. “In launching the Seefeld collection, we thought of doing something outdoorsy and yet classy at the same time. Coffee art is a good platform since it’s relatively new also. Seefeld is new and innovative, but at the same time it carries the Victorinox name.”

Elumba agreed. She said, “We follow global standards and use high-grade materials in making Victorinox products.”

One item she pointed out in the Seefeld collection was the 3-in-1 Convertible Garment Duffel Hybrid, which allows one to pack the bag as a duffel bag or a garment bag based on one’s travel needs. Another bag has the Compression Molded Back Panel feature, which allows the bag to be ultra-lightweight, flexible, and durable while still retaining its structure even under heavy loads. The bags come in black or maroon.

Coffee artists Jerel Limayo, Dante Palmes, Michael Melchor, Jennifer Romulo, Ella Hipolito, Lito Ballaran, and Kathleen Limay

The finished artworks — which ranged from Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley portraits, to rustic landscapes and coffee-drinker impressions — come in monochrome coffee brown, but there is a rainbow of earthly delights behind them.

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Victorinox is exclusively distributed in the Philippines by the Primer Group of Companies, a premier brand-builder of lifestyle and outdoor gear from all over the world. Victorinox products are available at R.O. X. Bonifacio High Street.