Guide

International Coffee Day AI prompts: cafe posts, latte videos and coffee portraits

Published 28 September 2026

A steaming cup of filter coffee in a steel tumbler and dabarah on a wooden cafe table beside a sunlit window

Short answerFor cafes, photograph your real drinks and use AI to improve the light and background, then add the offer text yourself. For personal posts, keep your face the same and describe the cup, the steam and the window light. Real details beat generic "coffee vibes".

International Coffee Day is on 1 October. It's a small day, but it's a good reason for cafes to post an offer and for coffee lovers to share a cosy picture. AI tools make both easy, as long as you ask for real details instead of a generic stock-photo look.

For cafes: improve real photos

Customers want to see your real drinks. The best use of AI is to take a photo you shot on your phone and make it look professional, without changing what's in the cup:

prompt

Keep this drink exactly as it is: same cup, same latte art, same size and colour.

Improve only the photo: soft window light from the left, a clean wooden table, a blurred cafe background with warm bulbs. Remove clutter such as napkins and receipts. Natural steam rising from the cup.
Style: professional food photography, 50mm lens, shallow depth of field, true colours. Square 1:1. No text.

"Keep this drink exactly as it is" is important. A picture of a drink you don't serve is a promise you can't keep at the counter.

Add your offer ("Buy one, get one half price, 1 October only") yourself in Canva or any photo editor. AI still misspells short text, especially prices.

Filter coffee shot

South Indian filter coffee in a steel tumbler and dabarah is one of the most loved coffee pictures in India. The filter coffee tumbler prompt makes one from scratch. To make your own look better, try this:

prompt

Using my photo of filter coffee, keep the steel tumbler and dabarah exactly as they are. Show a thin stream of coffee being poured from a height into the tumbler, with a thick frothy top. Morning light on a banana-leaf table mat, a jasmine string in soft focus behind. Realistic food photography. No text.

A short latte video

A 5-second clip of milk pouring into espresso is one of the easiest reels to make. Start from the latte art pour prompt, and change the cup to match your cafe. Keep the camera still and close. Wide shots of a full cafe often come out with odd hands and faces.

If you're opening a new branch or relaunching, the cafe opening promo prompt gives you a longer, 10-second version.

Selling beans or cold brew?

If you sell packaged coffee, mock up your label on a bag with the coffee bag mockup prompt. Upload your real label artwork and say "use this label exactly, do not redraw the text".

For coffee lovers: a cosy portrait

Want a coffee-day picture of yourself? Upload a clear photo and use this. It's based on the cafe window light portrait prompt:

prompt — 1 blank

Keep my face, hair and features exactly the same.

Put me at a small table by a cafe window on a rainy afternoon, holding a cup of [DRINK, e.g. cappuccino with a leaf pattern] in both hands. Soft grey daylight on my face, raindrops on the glass, warm bulbs inside.
Style: natural photography, 50mm lens, light film grain, cosy and calm. Portrait 4:5. No text.

Swap the rain for "golden morning light" or "a street in autumn" to change the mood.

Caption ideas you can write yourself

"First, coffee. Then everything else."
"Filter coffee, fresh from the dabarah."
"Happy International Coffee Day from all of us at [CAFE NAME]."

Keep captions short. Put the offer in the caption as well as the picture, so people can copy it.

Fixing common problems

The drink looks fake. Ask for "real foam texture, small bubbles, a little spill on the saucer".

Too much steam. Say "a thin wisp of steam". Heavy steam looks like smoke.

Hands look wrong in the video. Keep hands out of frame, or crop in close on the cup.

Where to go from here

The small business prompts collection has more offer posts and ads, and the product photo and ad prompts collection covers menus and packaging. For writing the caption and the offer, see our ChatGPT prompts for small business.