Self-Heating Coffee Cans Recalled

Old Man Kensey writes "Apparently those nifty Wolfgang Puck self-heating latte cans, introduced with such fanfare last year, have proven to be buggy -- cans have been reported failing to heat adequately or, more disturbingly, exploding and melting through the packaging. A recall has been announced -- here's hoping the flaws can be 'patched' soon."

Comments

No mention on Wolfgang Puck's site!

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

I've just had a look at the official How It Works (wmv, bleh) video on Wolfgang Puck's site - and there's no mention in the (surprisingly good) explanation that the cans may explode (funny that).

Also, check out this guy's dissection of a used can.

Re:No mention on Wolfgang Puck's site!

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Also, check out this guy's dissection of a used can.

Sorry to reply to myself, but Make Blog has a much better dissection

Honestly

[Monkeys!!!]

I've heard of starting the day with a bang but this is rediculous.

Wow, these are still around?

[ProppaT]

I remember having a sample of one of these in Target around hurricane season. They were trying to pass them off as a good way to get a hot cup of coffee when and if the power went out. I probabbly would have bought a few, but then they proceeded to give me a sample. This is, by far, the most disgusting "coffee" drink I've ever had, and this come from someone who's been known to suck on plugs of grounds like chewing tobacco when there's no hot water around...

Re:Wow, these are still around?

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

This is, by far, the most disgusting "coffee" drink I've ever had, and this come from someone who's been known to suck on plugs of grounds like chewing tobacco when there's no hot water around...

There's a reason for this. It's called aspartame . I bought a 4 pack of the Wolfgang Puck coffee when it came out last year. I had no problems with any of the cans, they all worked fine. However, it wasn't until I got home with my purchase that I looked at the ingredients list and saw aspartame as an ingredient. I don't know why so many beverage manufacturers refuse to accept the fact that the vast majority of consumers despise the taste of this artificial "sweetener".

There probably are a few sick individuals who actually like the taste, but I've talked to people who drank diet drinks regularly and almost all of them told me that they didn't like the taste of aspartame, but put up with it to get a reduced calorie beverage. I don't think the beverage industry has ever really understood that
tolerate != like
Besides, lattes are not meant to be diet drinks anyway. It seems to me to be contradictory to make a latte and then make it a diet drink.

Man, that's gotta hurt

[6Yankee]

Your hands would be Pucked!

Japan

[CRCulver]

Haven't self-heating cans been used in Japan for years now? Why not just use the same design as there?

Re:Japan

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Haven't self-heating cans been used in Japan for years now?

Yup, and a quick look at this wikipedia article shows that they've been around everywhere for over 100 years

Why not just use the same design as there?

The design is pretty old & pretty standard - the problem is almost certainly poor quality control (Brandsource trying to be cheap). Presumably they spent too much money buying the rights to Wolfgang's name to spend money on the production process.

Coffee is too individual to be canned

[fhmiv]

I don't like my coffee very sweet, so Wolfgang and Starbuck's pre-packaged coffee beverages, cold or hot, don't appeal to me.
I did try a few of Puck's self-heating latte beverages when they first came to satisfy my curiosity. One of the pack of four failed to heat, but luckily for me, none of them exploded or meltied their packaging.
It's spiffy to be able to heat your own coffee in such a small package, but when you seal up pre-mixed coffee in a can or a more complicated contraption like this one, you lose one of coffee's primary advantages as a beverage --- it is an excellent platform for customization.

I'd rather go without than drink a coffee beverage brewed or mixed to appeal to some marketeer's average consumer taste buds. If I wanted a sweet, pre-mixed beverage, I'd drink a soda.

Expectations

[cffrost]

From TFA:

OnTech's launch campaign for the self-heating product is "It Does What?"

"It takes time to educate the world to what [self-heating] is about," Weisz said.

It takes time, no doubt in part because the answer is, "it explodes."

Lawsuit Material

[Matilda the Hun]

Now, instead of all the "Contents may be hot" labels, everyone's going to have to start putting "Warning! Contents may detonate" on their coffee cups to avoid lawsuits.

Self heating can? Bah!

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Who wants a self heating can when you can get a self cooling beer!

(although I'll wait for the non-miller version, as I prefer my beer with flavour thank-you-very-much).

IT???

[eander315]

First of all, how is a self-heating coffee can related to IT? I'm not sure I see where the Information part of IT is at in this instance.

..."A recall has been announced -- here's hoping the flaws can be 'patched' soon."

Why? The first time I saw one of these, I thought it was pretty cool. Then I saw how much of the can is comprised of chemicals used to heat the coffee. It looks like half the volume of the can is contained in the chemical pouch, which seems a little excessive. This is not good technology. Until they can find a way to be a little less wasteful to do the same job, I hope they don't patch the problem.

Re:IT???

[indifferent children]

First of all, how is a self-heating coffee can related to IT?

It's a new platform for Java. Though it does sound like they were too aggressive with the overclocking.

Too much waste, anyway

[CortoMaltese]

This was probably discussed at length a year back, but I'm glad this product failed: I just think it produces too much waste per unit sold. I really don't care how handy or revolutional or whatever the product is, if it's difficult to recycle. Even if the coffee tasted good in it. It's not worth it.

Of course, that's just the opinion of a person who lives in a country where over 95 % of all beverage cans and bottles are recycled. I think realizing how well the system really works positively affects your attitudes towards recycling.

Patching the flaws

[Ithika]

I'm no great Java programmer or anything, but shouldn't the virtual machine prevent serious damage to the rest of the system (hand)?

It could be argued in this case that the software is not at fault, but the hardware. So no amount of adding in extra parentheses will fix the problem. Tis not just a matter of removing the line that says:

if ((date.month).contains('r')) {
igniteCan(SAFE_IGNITION * 50);
} else {
igniteCan(SAFE_IGNITION);
}

Re:Patching the flaws

[indifferent children]

The biggest complaints (including mine) seem to be about garbage collection.

It works

[digitaldc]

I've heard of starting the day with a bang but this is rediculous.

Exploding coffee: Guaranteed to wake your ass UP!

Re:It works

[Odin's Raven]

Exploding coffee: Guaranteed to wake your ass UP!

Personally, I find coffee is more effective when applied to the other end of the gastrointestinal tract, but to each their own. ;-)

Re:It works

[Spokehedz]

caffeine can be absorbed through the lower GI tract, as well as Alcohol and other nutrients. It's where the old joke...

****

A patient who was being fed rectally had a birthday when he was in the hospital, and the nurse decided to give him a treat on his birthday. She hooked up some icecream to his feeding tube and left the patient. A couple of minutes later, she heard screaming and groaning coming down the hall. Knowing what it undoubtedly must be, she rushed in and started to apologize profusely.

"I'm so sorry! Is it too cold?"

"NO! I HATE RUM RAISIN!"

****

Comes from. Of course, Ice cream cannot be tasted through the rectum--it is merely a joke. But the surface area of the rectum is much greater than that of the stomach, which allows the absorption of said chemicals/liquids to be absorbed MUCH quicker. Much like the vaporized alcohol that's beginning to show up in some yuppie-fied bars as-of-late that you simply inhale and get blitzed for about an hour.

But the idea of rectal feeding has been pretty much removed with the advent of modern intravenous methods. I've heard that unless your going to be doing some physical work, you can actually get all your required nutrients through an IV. I'm thinking 'heads in jars' are in store for some of us.

In other news

[technoextreme]

Wolfgang Puck's coffe cups were renamed Emril's Coffe cups.

Boom!

[6Yankee]

From TFA: it overheated and then blew up, sending her to the hospital.

It blew her that far? Now that's an explosion!

Hot Coffee

[DoofusOfDeath]

Wow, the Hot Coffee mod just gets EVERYONE in trouble, doesn't it?

Benefits far outweigh the risks

[dpbsmith]

Stop all the snivelling, cavilling, whining, Nervous Nellyism. No Progress can be made without taking risks. Did a few minor scalds and burns stop Chuck Yeager?

Would you like to go back to the dark ages, before antibiotics, the flush toilet, and self-heating coffee cans? When women were barred from advancement, trapped in a lifetime of relentless toil over hot coffeepots? When people routinely perished from exposure walking miles through blizzards attempting to reach the nearest Starbucks? When greedy vending barons forced workers to dig into their pockets for their last few coins, then laughed sadistically as their machines tauntingly dispensed chicken bouillion instead of coffee?

I say, who wouldn't gladly risk a few small explosions in order to be able to enjoy a hot can of gourmet rich expresso lattee--say, what's in this stuff, anyway? Ingredients: Water, Coffee (Ingredients (Water, Coffee (Ingredients (Water, Coffee (Ingredients (Water, Coffee (Ingredients (Water, Coffee (Ingredients (Water, Coffee (Ingredients (Water, Coffee (Ingredients (Water, Coffee (Ingredients (Water, Coffee segmentation fault: core dumped