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Self-Heating Coffee Cans Recalled
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Fri May 05, 2006 05:53 AM
from the hot-cup-of-joe dept.
from the hot-cup-of-joe dept.
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."
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[+]
Hardware: Self-Heating Coffee Hacking 377 comments
ptorrone writes "Awhile back I wrote about the new Wolfgang Puck self-heating coffee containers that took 10 years and $24 mil to develop. Well, I managed to find them in a local store and bought them to take apart to see how they work. Once activated, they reach 145 degrees in about 6 minutes. This isn't a review of the beverage, it's all about the stuff that makes the liquid hot, how it works, pictures and links to patents. I am looking in to how these could be recycled too."
[+]
Coming Soon: Self-Heating Coffee 536 comments
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."
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No mention on Wolfgang Puck's site! (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, check out this guy's dissection [traffictrak.com] of a used can.
Re:No mention on Wolfgang Puck's site! (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry to reply to myself, but Make Blog has a much better dissection [makezine.com]
Parent
Re:No mention on Wolfgang Puck's site! (Score:3, Informative)
If it was implemented so that rather than chaning the comment, you could add to it, that would be a different matter (imho) - that would let you do things like:
"Updated at $time: Found a much better explanation - see $someURL"
or
"Updated at $time: Oops, missed out a 'not' in that sentence!"
or even
"Updated at $time: Forget everything I wrote abo
Honestly (Score:5, Funny)
It works (Score:5, Funny)
Exploding coffee: Guaranteed to wake your ass UP!
Parent
Re:It works (Score:5, Funny)
Personally, I find coffee is more effective when applied to the other end of the gastrointestinal tract, but to each their own. ;-)
Parent
Re:It works (Score:5, Funny)
****
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.
Parent
Re:It works (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not a recent thing, though the yuppies may only recently be catching on. Back in the late '80s in the mining towns of Wetstern Australia, we had a drink called a Vapour Lock.
It was a shot glass of Sambucca which was lit, allowed to burn for about 10 seconds, then extinguished with the palm of your hand or buttocks of your girlfriend. Once the flame
Re:Honestly (Score:2)
Wow, these are still around? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wow, these are still around? (Score:2)
If I need my coffee on the go, I'll stick with room temperature Starbucks Doubleshots.
Re:Wow, these are still around? (Score:2)
If I need my coffee on the go, I'll stick with room temperature Starbucks Doubleshots.
Where do you think your starbucks cups end up? In landfill too.
Sure, it doesn't generate as much, but god there's a lot of litter around starbucks stores. (and its a pity starbucks don't recycle more too)
Re:Wow, these are still around? (Score:2)
Re:Wow, these are still around? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wow, these are still around? (Score:3, Interesting)
Calcium oxide is just lime - its not particularly bad for the environment. I thought you were objecting to the large quantities of plastic in the can.
A more enviornmentally (and wallet) friendly idea is to just buy a thermos and fill it wi
Re:Wow, these are still around? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Wow, these are still around? (Score:3, Informative)
Nah, who am I kidding, just look at the wikipedia article for aspartame [wikipedia.org]...
Re:Wow, these are still around? (Score:3, Insightful)
Every time a new artificial sweetener enters the market there are outcries about public safety. Sucralose ("Splenda") is still much better than others. Yeah, ok so they use Chlorine in making it -- so what? Your basic table salt has chlorine. I use chlorine in my pool. That in and of itself doesn't make me run screaming in terror.
I'd certainly much rather have Splenda than Aspartame in my products. I think the biggest problem facing Splenda is the (warranted) public distrust of the chemicals industry
Re:Wow, these are still around? (Score:3, Informative)
I avoid artificial sweeteners, all of them. I am not fanatic about it, I can drink an artificially sweetened soft drink if there are no others and I feel like one.
Check out some of the links returned by googling for sucralose [google.com]. One of them (possibly more), like this one [mercola.com] contain user testimonials (if asked for email just enter webmaster@mercola.com). Interesting stuff. Dr. Mercola has a p
Man, that's gotta hurt (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Man, that's gotta hurt (Score:2, Offtopic)
Wolfgang Puck self-heating latte cans exploding
Your hands would be Pucked
-1 Offtopic? Clearly someone very special has mod points today. And I thought it was just the metamoderation that sucked.
Japan (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Japan (Score:5, Informative)
Yup, and a quick look at this wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] 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.
Parent
Re:Japan (Score:2, Informative)
Which was very handy on a cold day in Nikko station. Hot coffee and a hand warmer in one!
--
silas
Re:Japan (Score:2)
Re:Japan (Score:2)
Coffee is too individual to be canned (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
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."
Re:Expectations (Score:2, Funny)
Actually that will be one of the quickest educational experiences you will ever have.
Lawsuit Material (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lawsuit Material (Score:2)
How long until the ambulance chasing lawyers on TV get hold of this one? "Have you been burned by an exploding coffee cup? Dial 1-800-..."
Self heating can? Bah! (Score:5, Interesting)
(although I'll wait for the non-miller version, as I prefer my beer with flavour thank-you-very-much).
IT??? (Score:5, Interesting)
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??? (Score:4, Funny)
It's a new platform for Java. Though it does sound like they were too aggressive with the overclocking.
Parent
nasty (Score:2, Interesting)
Too much waste, anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
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:
Re:Patching the flaws (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
We had those in the UK! (Score:3, Interesting)
Problem was not many people bought them. The coffee was nothing special, and because the cans were mostly filled with heater mechaism there wasn't even that much of it. They were expensive too.
I haven't seen any for a couple of years now. Instead a lot of petrol stations just have a coffee machine, or cans of coffee that are kept in a heater.
In other news (Score:4, Funny)
Boom! (Score:5, Funny)
It blew her that far? Now that's an explosion!
Hot Coffee (Score:5, Funny)
MRE's (Score:3, Informative)
Re:MRE's (Score:2)
Nothing new (Score:2)
Apart from that, this sort of thing is yet another example that sums up all the most stupid things in modern society. You take 'modern technology' (in this case a simple process that has been known at least since Roman times) and use it for the most pathetic and useless thing you can imagine; and then you just market it as 'Wow, soooo cool'. Sometimes I think the people who 'invent' kind of
Benefits far outweigh the risks (Score:5, Funny)
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 [wpgourmetlattes.com]--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
They suck (Score:2)
Are self-heating cans new? (Score:2)
1940s self-heating coffee... (Score:3, Informative)
In 1941 a ''New York Times'' food column reported:
Yesterday, we had our first cup of coffee, our first baked beans and our first spaghetti out of the amazing self-heating cans now being introduced by a department store in Manhattan... There's a fifteen-minute wait while the canned food, enclosed in an outer tin, heats without benefit of gas, electricity, or flame of any sort. This trick is accomplished by a chemical inside the first container, and the action is started when four holes are punched in the bottom. The whole mysterious apparatus is turned upside down for the stipulated number of minutes, then righted, and presto! there is your steaming coffee, or food, all ready to serve.
Holt, Jane (1941) "News of Food: War Emphasizes Benefit of Prune Vitamins--Hammering Opens Oysters," ''The New York Times,'' March 26, 1941, p. 19
In 1947, the same column reported "Food in Self-Heating Cans Reappears" (their having been reserved for the military during the war). Referring to the cans as "Hotcans," the columnist noted that "Chocolate is made with milk and is delicious (65 to 72 cents). Four hamburgers in tomato sauce with mushrooms are small but good, and the sauce is ample (89 to 98 cents). Coffee tastes something like the instantly brewed type, leaving something to be desired (49 cents)." (49 cents in 1947 is approximately equivalent to $4.64 in 2005).
Nickerson, Jane (1947), "News of Food: Food in Self-Heating Cans Reappears Here; Recommended for Motorists and Campers," ''The New York Times,'' November 26, 1947, p. 28
I have to wonder why the technology never took off. Of course, the Wikipedia article links to a 2001 article [soton.ac.uk] touting the "world's first" self-heating coffee, and it does say that the calcium oxide reaction is "nowhere near as straightforward as chemistry text books suggest and that the thermal design was critical to the efficient operation of the device."
Re:I can see it now.. (Score:2)