Hey coffee fiends, I need your help! This should be fun.
I'm working on a project (for a course in design) where the task is to design an intelligent coffee machine of the future. I want to ask a number of people what THEIR desires for a future coffee machine would be.
I'm limiting the scope of this to INDIVIDUAL users (think a machine that would go in a home or small workgroup, not something behind the counter at a coffeehouse) that brews espresso (not some machine that tries to do it all).
What would make it your dream coffee machine? A certain function -- or a LACK of a certain function? A feature or fun accessory? Get creative and think outside the box -- no wrong answers here, just idea generation!
Just reply to this thread -- unless you've got something REALLY crazy that you don't want the public to see (!!??).
Nobody knows exactly what coffee machines of the future will look like, but there are a few things we can say with a very high degree of assurance, almost amounting to certainty:
First, we will get rid of off-flavors introduced by contact with the materials of the machine itself (in particular, plastics, aluminum, brass, and stainless steel). If the same mechanism eliminates the need to clean the machine, that will be a big plus. The obvious way to do this would be through magnetic levitation. Coffee is weakly diamagnetic, so it can be suspended in a sufficiently strong magnetic field.
Here is an example of water being levitated in a magnetic field:
formatting link
Although the field strength is high, it is a static field, so there is no power dissipation once the field is set up. For cost reasons, however, it may require high-temperature superconductors to make this a commercially successful home appliance.
Second, the water will be synthesized in the machine in pure form from hydrogen and oxygen gases. The heat from the reaction can be used to provide the heat for the coffee, of course. An electrolytic cell can generate the hydrogen and oxygen gases by electrolysis of tap water, so no bottled gases would be required. This can take place at night, when demand for electricity is low.
Third, contact between the water and the coffee must be rapid and brief, to avoid flavors which are developed due to overextraction. This may be accomplished by accelerating individual particles of ground coffee using electrostatic fields in a sort of "gun", and shooting them through the magnetically levitated sphere of water. To avoid shock waves, they would be travelling at a speed not to exceed about Mach 0.95. They would travel through the sphere and exit the other side, where they would be caught in a waste container. This eliminates the need to handle filters, which is another big plus.
Fourth, the whole purpose of the magnetic levitation system would be defeated if the finished product were poured into a cup. (By which I mean, any normal cup as we know it today.) Instead a digital video camera will use face-recognition software to acquire and track the position of the coffee user. When the coffee machine has been armed (by pressing the large GREEN button) and the user approaches the machine and opens his/her mouth, an appropriately-sized coffee sphere will be ejected along a trajectory calculated to land in exactly the correct mouth location for maximum taste, olfactory, and tactile sensation.
Now that I've explained it, the rest of the details such as color of the cabinet and whether the unit is floor-mounted or countertop are a simple matter of design and engineering.
In article , Mark Thorson wrote: [a whole bunch of great stuff]
Mark, you ROCK. That's exactly why I came to the net -- those I asked were like, "Ummm... could you make the machine purple?" Not real out-of-the-box thinkers.
Now, now -- we don't have to MAKE the machine; this is an exercise in getting input from users about future designs and then synthesizing that down into something doable! =-) While yes, many of Mark's suggestions will not make it through feasibility assessment, it's a great batch of things to start with. =-)
That would not happen in a competently engineered machine. The magnetic field would have a closed circuit and not leak into the surrounding environment.
Hmm, it rather depends upon where the intelligence lives - in the machine or in the designer :-)
OK, I have been thinking about some ideas for a while, and put these forward as pretty much exactly what I would like to see on the market. Unless someone is going to be kind enough to send me the numbers for Saturday night's lottery draw I suspect I am going to have to wait for someone else to engineer this and put it into production.
Clearly it is going to have to brew the best possible coffee. That goes without saying. So...
It will boast very high precision in temperature profile and either pressure or volume profile. This is achievable now - one way to create what I envisage would be a pair of leadscrew driven pumps - one driving hot water, the other cold - a computer controlled feed-forward system would be able to create perfect profiles of all the brew parameters.
OK, now some more mundane thoughts.
My big beef about all domestic machines is that they are considered a standalone device. Make it a kitchen bench appliance - drill a huge hole in the bench-top and mount it over its own dedicated sink. You can put most of the mechanism under the bench-top - yielding almost arbitrary flexibility on the aesthetics of the visible component, and it suddenly becomes a very kitchen friendly device. The mess goes straight down the sink.
The machine can pay for its use of bench-space by being multi-purpose. The hot water delivery is a real boon, and we could add a additional nozzles for filtered water, both room temperature and chilled. Many people already have special hot and cold water delivery systems in their kitchen, this would supersede them (and also justify part of the price.)
Cleaning. We have a computer controlled machine with a source of high pressure hot water and steam. There is no reason why is cannot keep itself perfectly clean. Additional nozzles in strategic places and a "clean me" button. The machine simply blasts itself with hot water and steam, it would be possible to make a self cleaning steam want too (perhaps using a double walled wand to deliver the cleaning water to the end.) Since the machine is mounted over a sink there is no issue about where the mess goes.
External body. It should be constructed like any other piece of high quality plumbing for long term use in a domestic situation. Solid polished metal. All the switch-gear should be flush with the surface and totally sealed - so it is possible to clean all external surfaces with ordinary kitchen cleaning materials in exactly the same way as you would keep a tap or sink clean.
Grinder. This is an interesting issue. Clearly we will want a grinder. One possibility is to integrate a grinder into the machine. In a domestic low volume setting we don't need a clone of a commercial unit (except in durability and quality.) We don't want a doser, nor a large hopper. Indeed a true coffee geek will want to individually grind different beans from shot to shot - so we only need a hopper large enough to hold that - and add a weighted lid that will drive all the beans through the grinder and avoid any flying out. Use a conical burr grinder so that the grinds fall straight out of the bottom, and use a 90 degree gear set so that the motor can be mounted out of the way - deep inside the machine. The grinder can eject grinds right next to the group head, so it is very convenient - and any mess drops into the sink.
Cutsie ideas. Put a peltier cell cooled plate somewhere so that the milk jug can be kept cold for the best milk steaming performance. Adjustable cup holder so for those that must, a large cup or mug can be placed under the portafilter. This holder should also rotate out of the way to provide full access to the sink.
Clearly the device will be engineered to stay on permanently. Internally it should be very well insulated and the outside shell should not get hot. One could utilise aerogel insulation and achieve astounding thermal performance.
It seems to for me -- I bought one of the fancy stainless lined beverage mugs, but can't stand to use it, especially if I try to drink something cool out of it without using the sippie-cup like lid. It's just awful.
Some interesting ideas. I've often looked at my kitchen "instant hot" and thought "here's 3/4ths of an espresso machine". Just as you descripe, the instant hot has a plumbed in boiler that is mounted in the cabinet below my sink and all that is visible is the faucet that dispenses 190F water. This could easily be replaced/supplemented by a grouphead - perhaps electrically heated to supplement/stabilize the boiler water temperature. Add a pump and mount an airswitch on the countertop to control it and you're done.
I think the machines for home usage have too small capacities to be used as main coffee machine in most houses. They are secondary coffee-maker for all the persons I know that have some in real life, because of that restriction.
If a machine could produce 1 cup when you're on your own, and 12 cups to be served together the day you have guests (it's only Monday, Wesdnesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday for me), that'd be a huge improvement. Also, if the machine could, in addition of "espresso" produce decent "coffee" like the commercial machines are able to do. That'd be nice too. Maybe that'd be possible if you could change all the block and buy a regular-block, cafe-crema-block, many-guest-block...as you need. The hot water supply should be precise too, so the machine could make also tea when needed.
I want a screen like on my camera, and it will keep record of what sorts of coffee are inside it as it will be a superauto that you feed with a few sorts of beans (maybe green). Or make that data appear on my telephone.
There shouldn't be any box. If it's in the kitchen, it's integrated and only a sort of tap appears on the counter, you place the cup under it and wait. If it's in the living-room (I'd prefer), it's inside a cool piece of furniture and same thing, you see only the tap, and when you've finished drinking, you put the cups back in the drawer so the machine cleans them and heats them for next time.. Make it silent please. And no plumbing headaches. If it's the furniture model, it has to roll and to have a rechargeable battery so you can take it all over the house and garden. Add handles (hidden when not used) so it can easily be carried in stairs too. No need to make it fly, but that'd be cool to have it float in the air about one meter above the floor (I had a cool teddy-bear balloon like that when I was a kid) and have the machine follow me like a little dog. Yeah, it would come with me in the train, people would envy me.I'd go to *$ with it, to tease them. Now we're talking of the second generation anyway.
The other solution is to develop mini-machines that would produce one cup only. But you'd get one machine per person. Or you'd receive a set of 6 or
12 as marriage present, they'd be very stylish and assorted to the service of tableware. The size would be less than 20 cm long, the weight 200 g empty. Think of a nice tray to carry and store them. Maybe, you'd get one for espresso, one for capuccino, one for regular coffee... or they'd be versatile. Pods would be needed I suspect, but in future, everybody would have a pod-maker in the kitchen (to transform automatically green coffee beans into pods) or a similar system to recharge the personnal machines with coffee/water /milk/sugar/ice/flavoring....and gas for the pression.
Well, that's silly, I'll certainly end up with an Ethipian coffee jar and you too, as machines will become so altmodish...the progress will be have your mini-coffee tree in your flat and gather fresh beans daily. Don't lose time on machines, find us a design for the pot of our cafetal, with a system to water it when we are on holidays. It's fun to try to imagine.
sounds like the taste is probably from your saliva not the drink in the stainless steel...to test this supposition, you might put a piece of plastic wrap over the lip if the mug and see if you still get a bad taste...I would be interested in your test.
Who needs high tech computer control self brewing and cleaning coffee machines. I found a quick "fix" for my hot and iced coffee addiction. Scored web site for free sample of this liquid coffee concentrate that takes two seconds to make......and you can make it anywhere you've got water. Forget the engineering problems....just give me the caffiene. Isn't that the goal... or... is it the grade?
... site
formatting link
....check out blogsite,
formatting link
Sept 6th,
2004 posting that gave me the link......Mark
That's an idea - what about the use of ceramics and glass. The Cona vaccuum pot coffee maker is all glass. The ceramic glass you get on electric stove tops is pretty tough.The spec might not be ok for a boiler but they do line bulk milk tankers with glass. Perhaps you could do the same with a stainless steel boiler ? Ditto the piping and the portafiller. The 15 bar pump in an espresso machine might be tricky but incorporating ceramics into say, a lever type espresso similar to the La Pavoni may not be such a hurdle, as this operates at only at about zero point five bar. Hmmm, I need a coffee and/or an ice pack.
Stainless steel? If stainless steel makes your coffee taste different, then either you have a serious problem, or should be a taster for some food company. Wow.
: Second, the water will be synthesized in the machine in pure form : from hydrogen and oxygen gases. The heat from the reaction : can be used to provide the heat for the coffee, of course. : An electrolytic cell can generate the hydrogen and oxygen : gases by electrolysis of tap water, so no bottled gases would : be required. This can take place at night, when demand for : electricity is low.
Clearly, you don't understand how much the dissolved minerals in the water are important for good flavor. Try this out - go get yourself some distilled water, and compare it to both regular bottled water and/or tap water (depends on where you live, not everyone lives where the water is as excellent as we have in Champaign/Urbana). If you think that pure, unadulterated water tastes good, and that stainless steel makes a noticeable difference........
: Third, contact between the water and the coffee must be : rapid and brief, to avoid flavors which are developed : due to overextraction. This may be accomplished by : accelerating individual particles of ground coffee using : electrostatic fields in a sort of "gun", and shooting them : through the magnetically levitated sphere of water. : To avoid shock waves, they would be travelling at : a speed not to exceed about Mach 0.95. They would : travel through the sphere and exit the other side, : where they would be caught in a waste container. : This eliminates the need to handle filters, which is : another big plus.
I think you're thinking about sonic booms....but guess what? When your coffee hits that water, your bubble of water will want to go splat. Besides, while you want to avoid overextraction, underextraction won't exactly provide a good cup, either.
At any rate, you've got a wonderful imagination - even if you have some details out of skew.
DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.