Coming Soon: Self-Heating Coffee

prostoalex writes "In 2005 Wolfgang Puck will start selling containers of self-heating coffee, USA Today says. The combination of calcium oxide and water will heat the coffee to 145 degrees and keep it warm for the next 30 minutes. The coffee will be sold in regular grocery stores, and folks at Fool.com tell Starbucks to watch out as this product, coming from a well-known chef, might target those of us grabbing a cup of hot latte on the way to work."

Comments

Yuck

[CharAznable]

As a Costa Rican, the idea of instant coffee is insulting, let alone self-heating coffee.

Every time I go home, I bring a few months' supply of 100% pure Arabica beans. Here in the US good coffee is insanely expensive.

Mmmm, MREs

[jfengel]

Meals Ready to Eat, the US Army's replacement for it's old rations, usually come with a similar contraption: a wafer of material which is massively exothermic when combined with water.

It comes in a bag; you add water and then stuff your entree into the bag. The water comes to a boil (or at least apparently; it may just be hydrogen evolving from the reation, and they tell you not to use it in an enclosed place). The food goes from room temperature to way-too-hot-to-eat in a few minutes.

They recommend two of them if the food starts off frozen, but I've found that one will take it from rock-solid to tolerable (the things were designed to be eaten room-temperature as well.) It's not exactly luxury food, but it's incredible to have have hot food available almost instantly without having to carry cooking equipment or starting a fire.

Re:Dunkin Donuts

[CharAznable]

I concurr. Dunkin Donuts has really good coffee.
The founder of Starbucks had a business insight:

1. Sell cheap coffee for 4 bucks. 2. ??? 3. Profit!
Step two being: Yuppies will buy it just to feel cool.

Re:why is starbuck's the benchmark?

[Hatta]

Same reason anything Linux or Apple does is compared to Microsoft. Starbucks and Microsoft both make crappy products with great marketing. Sure it's better if you grind your own(Linux), or visit the local non-chain coffeehouse (Apple), but when there's a Starbucks on every streetcorner (Microsoft's 90% market saturation), sometimes you just take the path of least resistance to get your fix(or work done).