Self-Heating Coffee Cans Recalled 208
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."
No mention on Wolfgang Puck's site! (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, check out this guy's dissection [traffictrak.com] of a used can.
Wow, these are still around? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
nasty (Score:2, Interesting)
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 with coffee from home.
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.
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 was out, you'd insert a straw carefully into the glass and suck up the contents in one large slurp.
Inevitably you'd also inhale the alcohol fumes generated by the burning Sambucca and get a head rush that'd last for the next ten minutes. Every so often someone would pass out seconds after their Vapour Lock to be promptly painted, shaved or teabagged. Good times...