My Strange Search for the Origins of a Viral Coffee Cup

It started with the stainless-steel ice cream bowls. My partner unpacked them when we moved in together — shiny, shallow dishes with thin stems that reminded me of a dessert coupe sold by chef Laila Gohar for $86 a pop. Nope, they told me: They’d bought the bowls from a model’s stoop sale, then later found the same ones on AliExpress. The ice cream bowl was on my mind when I saw an Instagram ad for a coffee set from an Amsterdam-based brand called Soos Atelier. A double-walled espresso cup nested on a square saucer, complete with divots for a…