Tags · Cups
I’ll Take a Small. No, Not a Tall. Just a Small.
Saturday, November 21st, 2009
A very entertaining video posted on YouTube by katz20two talking about “the three sizes for unnamed coffee shop: tall, grande, venti.”
See also: Coffee Cup Sizes
High-Tech Coffee Cup Keeps Coffee at 136.4 Degrees F
Friday, November 13th, 2009
“The researchers at IBP came up with the idea of using PCM in coffee mugs. If it works in large office spaces and in jackets, why couldn’t it also keep a cup of coffee warm? To test their theory, they created the first PCM mug. The high-tech mug is made using a porcelain shell whose hollow interior is filled with a honeycomb structure made of ribbons of highly conductive material, such as aluminum. This honeycomb structure is then filled with PCM. ‘So now, if you are drinking hot coffee in one of these cups,” Sinnesbichler explains, “the drink’s heat is directed straight into the still solid PCM. This heat, in term, melts the PCM — kind of like wax — and turns it into a liquid.’”
This sounds like it could be a cool cup. Not only will your cup keep coffee better, but it’ll be a great conversation topic, too.
Read the full article, “Scientists Develop Intelligent Coffee Mug“, at SPIEGEL ONLINE.
Other Resources:
Now accepting cash, credit, and…Smug?
Friday, October 23rd, 2009Thanks to Chris Hallberg’s new Smug, you may be able to pay for your drink by swiping your coffee cup, instead of your credit card. Hallberg has found a way to integrate radio frequency identification (RFID) inside a coffee cup, called a smug. According to an article by WISN, this will be “like having a debit card in your coffee cup.”
This may help build loyalty, but why limit it to individual shops? I know many people enjoy trying new coffee shops, even if they already have a favorite – Heine Bros. being mine. You would think there would be a way for credit card companies to pick this up and use it in a way similar to the popuar gift cards from Visa, Mastercard, or Discover.
Will this really benefit me all that much? Probably not. I take my Heine Bros. coffee cup with me almost every time I go, so it won’t save paper there. It’s really not much of an effort for me to pull out my wallet and swipe my card or hand them some cash. That being said, would I buy a Smug? I probably would if it were from Heine Bros., or it worked like a gift card as I mentioned above. It’s a cool idea.
You should be able to find the smug starting next year at the Milwaukee-based Stone Creek Coffee. Other independant coffee chains have shown interest, hopefully with large corporate chains to follow. I’ll be interested to see if this idea takes off.
Sources:
- Smug Coffee
- WISN Milwaukee’s Channel 12
- WISN: Read the full article
- WISN: Watch the video
Coffee Cup Sizes
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009Nearly everyone I’ve seen uses six ounces when discussing the “normal” size of a cup of coffee. This isn’t set in stone, it just seems to be the amount used. In the Bunn drip maker I use, four cups of coffee equals almost 20 ounces, or five ounces per cup. Many coffee mugs you buy are going to be eight ounces or more, leaving you room for cream and sugar if you use it.
I called four coffee shops/stores and for the most part, sizes are pretty consistent. Below is a list of sizes used by Heine Bros., Highland Coffee, Dunkin Doughnuts, and Starbucks; Starbucks of course, uses fancy names for their sizes.
Heine Bros. Coffee
Small: 10 oz.
Medium: 16 oz.
Large: 20 oz.
Highland Coffee
Small: 12 oz.
Medium: 16 oz.
Large: 20 oz.
Dunkin’ Doughnuts
Small: 10 oz.
Medium: 14 oz.
Large: 20 oz.
X-Large: 24 oz.
Starbucks:
Short (X-Small): 8 oz. Note: Unadvertised and only available for hot coffee drinks.
Tall (Small): 12 oz.
Grande (Medium): 16 oz.
Venti (Large): 20 oz.
I was going to check with Seattle’s Best, but the cafe locator on their site kept resetting and not letting me zoom in/out on the map. I don’t like pages that don’t work correctly for an important function like that, so I didn’t waste much time.