Sebastian Bergne's Hot Milk Lab encourages flavour experiments
British designer Sebastian Bergne has created a "micro laboratory" that enables users to form different beverage flavours by adding aromas, spices and other ingredients to heated milk (+ slideshow).
The collection of borosilicate glass objects on solid beech platters was conceived in response to a brief from the curator of a Paris exhibition about milk.
"Claire Fayolle, the curator of the Milk Lab exhibition, asked me to create a project that explores, extends or reinvents the use of milk in our everyday lives," Bergne told Dezeen.
The Hot Milk Lab includes a jug with an integrated thermometer suspended over a candle, a set of glasses with stirring spoons and a series of cylindrical vessels to contain the various different flavourings.
"After studying milk itself, I discovered that its chemical composition of water and protein makes it an ideal vehicle for suspending flavours and nutrients," said Bergne. "So, the potential is there to develop milk as a drink way beyond the classic chocolate milk."
The collection of vessels looks more like a chemistry set than something that might be found in a kitchen.
"My aim was to create something that would become a kind of domestic lab," said Bergne. "A set that people could use sitting together playing and experimenting with flavours. So the character has ended up as a hybrid between the laboratory and the kitchen table."
Bergne hopes the concept will have a wider appeal beyond the initial exhibition it was created for. "At the very least I hope that the project might encourage people to get together with friends or family to try out their own milk drink flavour combinations at home," he said.
"In a best-case scenario, it could easily be developed into a commercial tableware product or with the right partners, even the basis for a new milk bar concept," the designer added.
Hot Milk Lab will be exhibited as part of the Milk Lab exhibition at La Milk Factory, Paris, from 29 May to 30 June 2015.