

We've been in the market for a new surface for our kitchen's eating area (a wide shelf that's set into a wide space knocked through into the sitting room serviced by four tall stools) for a year now. We've looked at tiles, synthetic stone, real stone, polymers, concrete, and lots of other stuff, but we knew we'd discovered our material when we happened on the Çurface exhibition at a coffee fair in east London. Çurface is the brainchild of two British makers who've figured out how to make a durable, beautiful, malleable material out of melted plastic coffee cups and compressed coffee-grounds.

Our Çurface cost £141 including delivery and installation — that was the minimum price for a 1m x 2m sheet (bigger than we needed it, but Adam from Çurface was happy to cut it to size and finish the edges). We've had it for two months now, and at this point, I'm prepared to pronounce it delightful. It looks great: the solid material minimizes the occasional small scratch or scuff, and it cleans very easily with normal spray-cleaners (when he installed it, Adam explained that we could treat it as a polymer and use Turtle Wax or similar for a high gloss, or treat it as a compressed fiber and seal it with Danish Oil). The manufacturer makes lots of different shapes to order — the demo we saw included lots of fancy curved chairs and such, all cast from a single piece. The manufacturer also advertises it as suitable for flooring, though I think it might be a little slippery.

It smelled great when we installed it, a faint, earthy coffee smell that faded over the course of a week or so. Now it's just the kitchen table, and we love it. It was half the price of the synthetic rock we'd looked at, it's made of recycled coffee waste, and it looks great. What more could we ask for (apart from a less orthographically unwieldy name)?



Çurface