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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Future of Drink

Keurig is Beta Testing Compostable Pods as Partner CoffeeB Blows Past 400 Thousand Customers

It was a year ago that Keurig announced it had begun working with CoffeeB to create its next-generation compostable coffee pod. The new pod, a puck-shaped consumable called the K-Round, features a fully compostable, plant-based container and was introduced alongside the company’s next-generation single-serve coffee brewer, the Alta.

So when the company announced last week that both the K-Rounds and the Alta brewer are currently undergoing beta testing in consumer homes, I was intrigued, as it looks like we may finally be inching closer to a post-plastic future in the world of single-use coffee. According to Keurig Dr Pepper, they are leveraging insights gathered during consumer testing to optimize the unboxing experience, brewer performance, and the taste and aroma of the beverages produced.

Keurig said it has launched operations at a new, proprietary pilot manufacturing line at its R&D center in Burlington, Massachusetts, where it’s producing the initial batches of K-Round pods for beta testing. This facility will serve as the foundation for refining the manufacturing process as the company scales toward mass production. Keurig also noted it has broken ground on a new roasting and production facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

The company provided updates on the Alta’s variable pressure brewing technology, which allows for adjustments in brewing pressure to create different types of barista-quality coffee—including a golden, velvety crema (finally giving them the ability to rival Nespresso’s centrifuge-derived crema). Keurig says four varieties of K-Rounds have been developed and are currently undergoing testing, with plans to expand the selection in the coming months.

The company also disclosed it is undergoing third-party testing to certify that its K-Round pods are compostable in both industrial and home settings. They say they are on track to achieve certification ahead of the broader product launch, aligning with their goal to make 100% of their packaging recyclable or compostable by 2025 (and to further distance themselves from past criticism over unfulfilled sustainability claims).

While Keurig’s progress on a sustainable pod system validates CoffeeB’s technology (Keurig’s system incorporates CoffeeB’s tech along with some of its proprietary IP), the Swiss-based division of Delica AG has been experiencing rapid growth on its own, doubling the number of brewing systems in the field from 200,000 in September 2023 to 400,000 by early 2024.

Smart Tea Infuser Teforia Comes Back From the Dead Seven Years After Shutting Down

When it comes to zombies, you never know when they’ll spring back to life.

As we learned this past month, the same goes for zombie products. Teforia, the eponymous smart tea infuser that vanished when the company abruptly shut down in the fall of 2017, is back after nearly a decade. A New Jersey-based tea company named Adagio Teas has apparently acquired the assets and is now selling Teforia tea infusers on its website.

In its announcement, Adagio referenced the financial problems that led to Teforia’s closure but mistakenly got the timeline wrong. The release states that Teforia originally launched in 2018, when it actually shut down the year before:

“Originally launched in 2018 to widespread acclaim, Teforia was discontinued due to financial constraints, leaving a devoted community of tea drinkers longing for its return. Now, Adagio Teas is bringing this beloved innovation back, combining cutting-edge technology with the artistry of fine tea.”

“We recognized the deep passion that tea drinkers had for Teforia and its ability to elevate the tea experience,” said Michael Cramer, CEO of Adagio Teas. “As a company dedicated to providing the highest-quality loose-leaf teas, we saw an incredible opportunity to bring Teforia back and reintroduce a smarter, more intuitive way to enjoy tea.”

At the time of its original release, Teforia attracted attention because its creators claimed it could personalize each brew with precise amounts of caffeine, antioxidants, and other elements. Additionally, the hardware had a distinctive and appealing design that stood out in the tea world.

Unfortunately, the product never gained widespread popularity, likely due to its initial $1,500 price tag. While the newly re-released version is significantly more affordable at $500, many potential buyers might still question why they would invest in what remains a premium-priced tea brewer, especially when established brands like Breville offer comparable “smart” tea brewers for roughly half that price.

I’m curious to see if Teforia can succeed on its second attempt. The tea and technology landscape in 2025 is vastly different from a decade ago, with many tech-powered tea infusers available. However, backed by a reputable tea company, perhaps Teforia stands a better chance this time around.

Milkadamia: How’d You Like a Nice Glass of 2D Printed Oat Milk?

This week, Milkadamia, known for its range of macadamia-based milks, announced its first oat milk. However, this isn’t just any oat milk; the company is introducing Flat Pack oat milk, which are printed sheets of plant-based milk that are designed to be rehydrated in water overnight or blended for an instant beverage.

According to the company, these sheets are created by printing oat milk paste onto flat sheets using a proprietary 2D printing process. Each package contains eight of these lightweight sheets, reducing both packaging and weight.

But why print milk instead of shipping it as a ready-to-drink liquid? Although plant-based milk is more environmentally friendly than dairy, ready-to-drink beverages still have a significant carbon footprint and require substantial packaging to reach consumers. Research from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health highlights that the climate impact of bottled water, for example, can be up to 3,500 times higher than that of tap water. Milkadamia claims that their printed milk sheets will reduce packaging by 94% and product weight by 85%.

Milkadamia isn’t the first to venture into printed beverages, or even printed milk. Veganz, for instance, patented a 2D-printed milk product last year and began distributing it soon after. Given the similarities between Veganz’s product and Milkadamia’s oat milk, it raises the question of whether Milkadamia is licensing this technology from Veganz. (Editor update: Milkadamia confirmed via email that they are using the same technology as Veganz and are the first to introduce flat-pack milk in the US).

Another company in the printed beverage space is SmartCups, which prints energy drink concentrates directly into cups, allowing consumers to create their drinks by simply adding water. This approach to printed beverages seems to be gaining more traction than in-home beverage printing—a concept that Cana, a company that attempted to market it, struggled with before going out of business last year.

Milkadamia’s new Flat Pack printed oat milk is set to be available online and in stores starting January 2025.

‘It’s Algorithmic’: Surreal Brewing’s Founder Says Process for Non-Alchohol Beer Based on Science, Not Gimmicks

Nearly a decade ago, Tammer Zein-El-Abedein and his wife, Donna Hockey, had reason to celebrate. Donna had just successfully overcome a breast cancer diagnosis, and so the couple hoped to commemorate the good news in a healthy way.

“We wanted a nonalcoholic beer,” said Zein-El-Abedei in an interview at Smart Kitchen Summit earlier this month. But, according to the former Google executive, they couldn’t find any non-alcoholic beer “outside of the stuff that’s been out for the last 30 or 40 years, which just wasn’t very interesting.”

So they decided to brew their own. Nine months later, in June 2018, the couple’s first beer (and their company Surreal Brewing) was born. It didn’t take long before the plaudits started rolling in, first in the form of a gold medal at the World Beer Awards and, in 2019, the award for the world’s best non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beer.

Since then, the pair have grown their non-alcoholic craft beer lineup, including four different types of IPAs, a Kolsch, and a couple of Porters. They’ve also expanded across the country, getting distribution into states like Virginia, and became the first non-alcoholic beer poured on tap at Disney World.

Experts generally agree there are four ways to make non-alcoholic beer, including “arrested fermentation,” extracting alcohol from brewed beer, watering down beer (um, gross), and simulated fermentation (which skips the fermentation altogether and adds ingredients and enzymes to simulate a similar result). Zein-El-Abedein doesn’t go into the specifics of the company’s brewing techniques but says its patent-pending brewing process is based on chemistry and not special gimmicks.

“The way we approached making our product is based on science,” he said. “We don’t have a special hoodaddy that you pour in, which comes out non-alcoholic. We don’t do any of that stuff. We actually engineered a process from the ground up that is algorithmic.”

If you’d like to listen to our full interview with Zein-El-Abedein, just click below.

Surreal Brewing Company and the Future of Non-Alcoholic Beer

Keurig Unveils Plastic-Free Coffee Pods, Developed With A Little Help From The Maker of CoffeeB

If you can’t beat them, join them.

And if you’re Delica, that’s precisely what the Swiss-based company did. That’s because today, North American single-serve giant Keurig Dr. Pepper announced that they have developed a completely new single-serve coffee form factor, one that does away with the iconic (and environmentally damaging) plastic pod, by partnering up with Delica, maker of the CoffeeB fully compostable single-serve coffee ground form factor.

Longtime readers of The Spoon know that Delica launched the CoffeeB system in 2022, and it has been quickly gaining traction in Switzerland, France, and Germany with its fully compostable coffee pods balls. According to Keurig, they have entered into a long-term partnership with Delica that grants Keurig the exclusive rights to use and build upon Delica’s proprietary technology for consumers across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Keurig's new K-Rounds and Alta Brewer Announcement Video.

Keurig’s new single-serve coffee grounds form factor is called the K-Round, which, like Delica’s, will use a plant-based compostable container. According to Keurig, the K-Round is not only a result of the collaboration with Delica, but also a multi-year research effort by Keurig Dr Pepper’s R&D team. In addition to Delica’s IP, the K-Round utilizes its internal IP to develop a product tailored for the North American market, which includes patents pending for both the brew system and the plastic-free pods.

One primary difference between the CoffeeB system and the new K-Rounds is that the K-Round is essentially a flat puck shape compared to the CoffeeB system’s ball shape. One reason for the different shapes is that they enable Keurig to utilize its BrewID technology, which scans information printed on the top of each K-Round to get information about the specific coffee type and optimize the brew.

“We’ve invented a different shape for them,” Becky Opdyke, senior vice president of Keurig Systems Marketing, told The Spoon. “And that’s because we’re going to be printing some coding on the top that will be read by the brewer so that it makes the coffee type that best matches the K-Round. There will be ones that are specifically sized for espresso versus a long coffee versus a cold brew, for example.”

Of course, the delivery of a new single-serve form factor requires a new coffee brewer, and on that front, Keurig also had plenty of news. Alongside announcing the new K-Round, the company introduced its new Alta coffee brewing system. According to Keurig, the Alta will enable a Keurig brewer to deliver espresso-style coffee extraction for the first time, including the ability to create crema. This new capability is directly tied to the new K-Round, which can withstand up to 250 psi of pressure.

Keurig also announced that the new Alta will be backward compatible with existing pods. While that might initially be a bummer for those who want to see an end to plastic pods, it’s actually critically important since consumers tend to take time to change consumption patterns. By providing a device that bridges generations of pods, Keurig is giving its new system and single-serve form factor its best chance of survival.

A year and a half ago, I asked if CoffeeB stood a chance against Keurig. As it turns out, they didn’t have to fight that battle since they decided to partner with the North American’s single-serve giant. Ultimately, this strategy means consumers (and the earth) will be the winners in the long run with more choices and less waste.

Keurig Takes Another Swing at Cold Beverages With the Launch of QuickChill Cold Coffee Technology

Perhaps the third time’s a charm?

That appears to be what Keurig is thinking, given the news of the single-serve coffee giant’s new technology and brewing system that allows it to deliver cold-brewed coffee drinks instantly.

The new system, QuickChill, will use advanced cooling technology to flash-chill fresh-brewed coffee. According to Keurig, QuickChill will chill hot-brewed coffee from a K-Pod in three minutes, pouring coffee into the glass at 60°F. That’s a vast difference between the company’s previous efforts at ice coffee with its K-Iced coffee line, which poured hot-brewed coffee on top of ice. Keurig says that the new technology will result in coffee that comes out of the machine three times colder than coffee brewed by its K-Iced line.

The new technology, which has an internal chilling mechanism that reduces the coffee’s temperature post-brew, will result in less diluted coffee once poured over ice, which, according to Keurig itself, didn’t always lead to coffee shop results.

“Historically, really, what you’re getting is just a hot brew over the top of ice, and it created a less flavorful, watered-down version of the beverage,” said Josh Hulett, Keurig’s SVP of product management, in a video (see below) about the new QuickChill technology.

The new QuickChill technology will be used in a new hot/cold brewing system from Keurig called the K-Brew + Chill brewer. It will be available starting this fall, and pricing has yet to be announced.

QuickChill is Keurig’s third attempt at creating a platform that dispenses cold beverages. Keurig followers might remember the Keurig Kold, an attempt to compete with the Sodastream carbonated beverage appliance. After shuttering that effort, the company partnered with AB In-Bev a couple years later to create a pod-based home cocktail-making appliance with their Drinkworks joint venture. Drinkworks didn’t make it as far as Kold, shutting down soon after a newly announced new product line.

With QuickChill, however, the company looks to be sticking to what it knows: coffee. According to the company, this move attempts to tap into strong interest in cold-brew coffee, particularly among younger coffee drinkers.

“We’re really excited about this innovation launching because it is a breakthrough for us to be able to serve cold coffee to our consumers, especially to our younger consumers and Gen Z, forty-eight percent of whom had a cold coffee this past week,” said Becky Opdyke, Senior VP of Keurig systems marketing, in an interview with The Spoon. “We want to make sure we’re delivering for them at home as well.”

The news of QuickChill was part of a slew of announcements by Keurig today, including the launch of a completely new single-serve delivery form factor and a new-generation brewing system that takes advantage of the new compostable, plastic-free pod.

The Keurig QuickChill and K Brew BREW + CHILL announcement video from Keurig.

Bellwether Debuts Small-Format, Countertop Electric Coffee Roaster for $15 Thousand

Today Bellwether Coffee announced its latest electric, ventless coffee roasting machine, The Bellwether Shop Roaster. The new roaster, which is the company’s third-generation electric roasting machine, will retail starting at $14,900, about one-quarter of the price of its second-generation roasting appliance.

According to the company, the Shop Roaster will be able to roast 3.3 pounds of coffee in about 15-20 minutes, meaning a throughput of up to 13 pounds of coffee per hour. As part of its new product lineup Bellwether will also offer a continuous roasting upgrade to the Shop Roaster for $5,000 extra ($19,900 for upgrade and the Shop Roaster). The continuous roasting upgrade will enable the auto-loading of green, unroasted beans into the coffee roaster, enabling up to 13 continuous roasts or 44 pounds of coffee before refilling the base with unroasted coffee beans.

We’ve been following Bellwether since the early days here at the Spoon when they were one of the early roasting infrastructure players pushing the industry towards electrification and decentralized roasting. While some of the bigger players in roasting, like Probat, have started to offer electric roasters, Whiel some players like Carbine have gone out of business, Bellwether continues to push the envelope on size and could attract even more coffee shops and retailers to experiment with roasting their own beans.

The Kara Pod is a Coffee Machine That Refills Itself by Pulling Water from Thin Air

This year at CES, Kara Water debuted the Kara Pod, a combo coffee brewer and air-to-water countertop machine. The Kara Pod takes company core technology, which turns humidity from the air into drinking water, and combines it with a coffee machine that can produce up to almost a gallon of water (3.2 liters) per day, which can be used as drinking water or for brewing coffee.

Kara Water was founded in 2017 by Cody Sooden and Michael Di Giovanna. The two wanted to create a machine that could produce clean drinking water free of contaminants. Sooden’s interest in the technology started after he began experimenting with capturing water from air while studying architecture. He eventually wrote a research paper on harvesting moisture from the air, which ultimately became the genesis of the company’s technology.

Kara Water isn’t the first company to show off water-from-air technology at CES. We’ve seen Watergen debut a working model in 2020, and Zero Mass Water, which uses solar power to capture moisture and turn it into drinking water, showed off its machine at CES 2019. But this is the first countertop appliance model we’ve seen and the first time we’ve seen air-to-water combined with a coffee machine.

According to Sooden, the Kara Pod will start shipping in March for $299. You can watch our interview with Sooden below.

The Kara Pod Coffee Maker Gets Water Refilled From Out of Thin Air

Watch This Tour of The Yo-Kai Boba Robot at CES 2024

In what seems to be an annual occurrence at this point, this year Yo-Kai introduced a new robotic food kiosk and drew huge crowds at CES. This year, it was the company’s new boba robot, which features the ability to cook boba inside as well as prepare both hot and iced drinks.

The Spoon dropped by the Yo-Kai booth to get a video tour of the new boba-bot with company CEO Any Lin. When we broke the story of the Yo-Kai boba-bot a couple of weeks ago, we revealed that the company planned to open up a new sales channel by embracing small business owners through franchises. According to Lin, one of the reasons this new appliance helps make this possible is, unlike the ramen noodle bots that helped the company make a name for itself, the new boba bot only uses room-temperature, shelf-stable ingredients. That means they can ship ingredients to users without requiring large-scale cold chain logistics networks, a requirement which often necessitates bigger partners.

Whether you’re a small business interested in franchising a Yo-Kai boba machine or just a boba-loving nerd, you’ll want to check out the video below.

Tour of Yo-Kai's Boba Robot at CES 2024

Sold! Mystery Company Acquires Assets of Beverage Printing Startup Cana

Perusing the website of the Production Board earlier this week, I noticed the company that gave birth to the Cana beverage printer listed the business as “sold.”

Interesting, but not surprising. Cana, which ran into trouble trying to raise funding to build out its hardware and consumables production line, created quite a buzz the past couple of years and had filed for a bunch of IP before closing its doors this spring, so the chance to pick up the assets for a song could be a potentially intriguing prospect for a big CPG or tech brand.

When I reached out to the Production Board, they confirmed the sale but said it’s up to the acquiring company to reveal the destination of Cana. If one were to speculate, it’s easy to imagine any number of acquirers, ranging from Cola-Cola looking to make a next-gen countertop version of the Freestyle to a Keurig/Dr. Pepper turning the Cana cartridge into a money-printing consumable platform for the next decade.

Either way, we’re going to have to wait and see. If you do happen to know where Cana ended up and want to have a chat, please drop us a line.

CoffeeB Hits 200k Households For Coffee Ball Brewing System That Aims to Replace Capsules

Not bad for a first year. After launching their compostable ball-shaped coffee pod brewing system last fall, CoffeeB has already reached a milestone of two hundred thousand customers who are using the system according to company CEO Frank Wilde. In a recent Linkedin post commerating the company’s one year anniversary, Wilde revealed the milestone and says the company has strong momentum ahead.

“The first year went well … with over 200,000 households having chosen to switch to CoffeeB and we are optimistic that many more will follow suit in the coming years,” wrote Wilde. “Our R&D team is continuously working on making our coffee blends and machines even better, giving consumers the most sustainable solution to conveniently drink high quality coffee.”

Developed over five years, the CoffeeB system is a single-serve coffee machine that does away with the plastic pod or capsule. Instead, the new system utilizes round balls of coffee called Coffee Balls instead of old-school plastic or aluminum capsules. Coffee Balls, which hold the coffee in a compostable layer of algae that keeps the coffee fresh and protected from flavor loss, can be dropped into a compost bin after they are used.

Currently the CoffeeB system is only available in Switzerland (the home of parent company Migros), France and Germany. Wilde has told The Spoon that he expects the CoffeeB to enter the North American market at some point, but hasn’t given a firm timeline.

While pod system giants Keurig and Nespresso have made progress in recent years in developing recycling programs and working on compostable pods, the vast majority of coffee pods used today are still made of plastic or aluminum and end up in the garbage. And sure, 200 thousand households is only a fraction of the single-serve coffee market (Keurig shipped nearly 3 million systems in 2021 alone), but the numbers are significant enough to probably make the big guys take notice.

Barsys Makes Case For Adding Style to Bartender Robot Category With the Barsys 360

Home cocktail-making appliances have gone through lots of phases since we started writing about them in 2016. We’ve seen everything from pod-based systems from Bartesian and Drinkworks to DIY approaches like those from MrBar.io to cocktail robots with names reminiscent of 80s hip-hop artists.

And, if we’re honest, most don’t look that interesting, either presenting as something of an after-dark Keurig or a mini version of the restaurant bar dispensing system.

In other words, cocktail bots nearly always focus on utility over design.

But should that be the case? I mean, shouldn’t home appliances, especially ones focused on entertaining and leisure, actually look good? Barsys, a company that’s been making bartending appliances for the home for the past five years or so, is trying to make precisely that case with its latest product, the Barsys 360. With an interesting-looking ring-shared design allows the cocktail glass to sit within as various ingredients are dispensed from overhead, the Barsys 360 is a significant departure from any home cocktail appliance we’ve seen here at the Spoon

In fact, at first glance, it looked a little heavy on design over function, as I wasn’t sure exactly where the machine’s liquid chambers were located or how to get the liquid inside. According to the specs, it has six, and the company assured me they all sit within the 360’s ring itself. Spirits and mixers are added into the 360 via three holes at the top, using a small adapter called the “spirit funnel” seen in the rendering below. According to the company, each of the six liquid canisters can hold 900 ml in each canister (about 4 cups).

The new Barsys360 looks much different than the previous Barsys 2+, which looks like a 3D printer with a bottle-dispenser mechanism on top. The 360 also comes with a significantly lower price tag (although I’d hesitate to call the 360 cheap) at $475 for pre-orders.

With the 360 succeed? Hard to say, mainly because outside of Bartesian, the home bartender bot market has proven to be a tough market in which to gain traction. Part of the problem is most consumers have a couple of go-to cocktails they like, and, for the most part, they know how to make them. For these folks, introducing a relatively expensive machine to automate the process may seem like an unnecessary step.

However, by focusing on design and something that might look good in the kitchen or entertaining room, Barsys hopes to appeal to craft cocktail nerds who want to add a little technology-powered flair to their cocktail-making routines. And, unlike the pod-based machines, they are removing any need to rely on proprietary supplies from a startup (another big red flag for this category in the mind of consumers).

If you’re interested in a 360, Barsys is launching pre-orders this week. If you do buy one, make sure to let us know how it goes.

You can watch the hero reel video provided by the company below: