The first line of this New York Times article sums it up best: “…some innovations are like Post-it notes: you didn’t know you needed them until they were invented.” As a coffee addict, I always have an eye out for articles on coffee, specifically caffeine. I think I’m looking for pro-caffeine articles to use as ammunition against well meaning family members who tell me I’m drinking too much java. I did find an interesting coffee article today, but it has nothing to do with any purported health benefits (oh, yes, coffee has many).
Wolfgang Puck has introduced a new line of drinks – a self heating latte in a can. The canned latte will cost around $2.25 for a 10 ounce can. The little guy is heavy though, weighing in at 1 pound 2 ounces. And from the review in the Times, the taste is not that great.
The coffee, which comes in four flavors, goes on sale at Kroger grocery stores this month and will eventually move to other retailers.
It took a California company named OnTech seven years and $24 million to create the self-heating cans, which are activated by pushing a plastic button on the bottom. Water flows into a sealed inner cone filled with quicklime, which is mostly calcium oxide. A chemical reaction heats the coffee to a pleasant 145 degrees in six to eight minutes, the amount of time it might take to order, pay for and receive a latte from a barista.
At first I thought this may be a nice drink to through in my pack when I’m out for a day of climbing. Take a break, kick back, and pop open a hot can of latte for an afternoon pick me up. But at that weight, it limits its uses to the kitchen or in the car. Nonetheless, its a nice little application of technology that will be appreciated by many coffee addicts.
8 Comments
Is this can available for sale now?
I love coffee too Tom! And I saw the can in the stores up here in Indy. Have you tried it yet?
I actually have finally seen these in the grocery store. I haven’t tried them yet though.
Are they for sale at Kroger? I’ll have to buy one just for the nolvelty of it.
Feature request for feedminer.com: autodiscover the feed when the user provides the main page for the blog. I’ve seen this on most other search sites.
That’s it… oh and.”I figured it would be nice if I signed your guestbook. I just thought that I would visit your homepage and see what all you have been up to, well – itâ??s awesome!”
What’s up with all that spam in your blog? It might be worth looking into Moveable Type (ok, I’m partial).
David, thanks for the feature request for FeedMiner. We’re currently getting ready to release a bunch of updates to the service next week. The auto discovery is not part of that release, but I agree it’s an important feature to have.
With regard to the spam, what can I say. There are features built in to WordPress that should be taking care of this and I’m not exactly sure why I’m having this issue. The vast majority of the spam leaves an anonymous name with no links. I have WordPress set to not allow anyone to leave a comment without leaving a name and email (as can be seen above) so I’m at a loss on what the issue is. I’m sure I have some setting wrong, but just haven’t had time to research the issue. That being said, I spent some time cleaning up the spam garbage and adding some details to some of the other spam protection WordPress provides. Hopefully it will work!
Good luck with the Spam Tom. I had a lot of spam problems with my blog which uses Moveable Type (sixapart.com). They have a number of plugins that help curb it. I have been SPAM FREE* for a few months now. Ok, here’s the disclaimer: I’ve been spam free as far as my readers can tell. Any entry over a set number of days must be approved by me. Anything within the time zone is approved automatically. Most of your comments for posts will come withing the first few days, any that come later are just delayed until I can weed them out from the Spam. The plugin is called MT-Moderate. Maybe there is an equivalent for WordPress. If not, Switch to MT!!! They have version 3.2 coming out soon. It looks spectatular.
Take care,
David
We love them when time is short and running out the door. We can’t wait until we can get other beverages and soups also. The taste isn’t like a fresh brewed but what is? It’s fast and just what my 18 yr old son has time for in the morning.
I purchased and enjoyed two of them for a summer of 2006 camping trip. I enjoyed the French Vanilla and the Hazelnut.
Local stores seem to be out of stock nowadays. So I’m looking for other sources, perhaps even the manufacturer. I feel they’re great and worth my effort & money to get more.