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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

coffee

Your Guide to Faster, Fancier, Better Cold Brew, Thanks to Tech

If you’ve left your house in the past month odds are you walked past a boatload of people carrying plastic cups filled with cold brew coffee. Maybe you were even one of them.

Cold brew coffee — that is, coffee that is slow extracted in cool water to make a smoother, less bitter beverage — is so hot right now. So it’s no surprise that companies are hungry (thirsty?) to cash in on this trendy drink outside the coffee shop.

There’s ample opportunity. Mintel reported that in 2017 only 7 percent of coffee drinkers made their own cold brew at home. Many people thought it took too long (cold brew requires at least 12 hours of steeping), or that the flavor of the homemade stuff wasn’t up to snuff. But a whole slew of devices and products are trying to reinvent your relationship with cold brew, outside the coffee shop.

Sure, you could keep it low tech and just to steep some coffee grounds overnight in your French Press and call it a day. But for those who want to make their own cold brew faster, fancier, and better than ever, here’s your guide:

Coffee brewed in a PicoBrew Z

Smart homebrewing company PicoBrew has cold brew coffee-brewing capabilities for its Pico Z and Pico C devices ($4.99 for a reusable cold brew filter, $399 to $2,749 for the Pico’s themselves). It significantly speeds up the process so you can have cold brew, dispensed from a Pico mini-keg, in two hours. Plus it looks cool — mini-keg!

PicoBrew isn’t the only home beer brewing company getting into cold coffee. Growlerwerks, previously known for its countertop brewing devices, is in the midst of a successful Kickstarter campaign for its nitro cold brew-making uKeg Nitro ($199 MSRP). Nitro cold brew, which has the creamy, lightly-carbonated texture of Guinness, became a household name once Starbuck’s started selling it. Growlerwerks isn’t alone — other companies like KEG STORM and Royal Brew also have countertop nitro cold brew makers.

The Dash cold brew coffee maker.

One of the hardest parts about making cold brew is having to wait until it’s ready. Cuisinart and Dash both have devices that will let you make a cup in 30 minutes or less. Cuisinart (~$52) uses spin technology to quickly extract the flavors from coffee grounds. Dash ($99.99), which promises to make a cup of cold brew in only 5 minutes, uses something called “cold boil technology” for its extraction, with mixed reviews.

Photo: Trader Joe’s

If mess is your main cold brew complaint, quite a few companies are making pre-filled cold brew bags (sort of like giant tea bags, but with ground coffee) which you can steep and then toss with no cleanup. Cold brew bags may be relatively low-tech, but they’re still a valuable upgrade to your home brewing process. Because is there anything worse than trying to scrape old coffee grounds out of a French Press? They’re also a steal — bags go for as low as $5.99, which will brew you 7 cups of cold coffee.

If cold brew’s smooth, inoffensive flavor just isn’t nuanced enough for you, check out what Elemental Beverage Company is brewing. They use a cooling coil technology to “snapchill” freshly-brewed coffee, which they claim makes a better, fuller-flavored cup of joe than the cold brew method. Elemental will eleventually sell their Snapchiller machine to cafés, but if you want a taste now you can order some cans of snapchilled coffee online ($4.99 each). If you’re feeling really fancy, you can spring for their $200 bottle of snapchilled artisanal coffee (yes, I’ve tried it and it is worth it).

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Summer is just starting, so it’s not too late to invest and up your cold brew game all season. Me though, I’m a bit of a traditionalist. I think I’ll stick to using my old-school French Press.

FIBBEE is a Moscow-Based Robot Barista

If I told you that Russian ‘bots were getting more sophisticated and spreading, your first reaction might be one of concern. But what if I told you that those Russian ‘bots served coffee? Well, then you might welcome them with open arms.

Moscow-based Foodtronics has created FIBBEE, a robot barista that serves up all manner of lattes and other coffee drinks. Like Briggo and Cafe X here in the U.S., FIBBEE is an automated kiosk that can be set up in high-traffic areas, and like those American counterparts, the number of FIBBEE locations is expanding.

Moscow is downright hot for robo-baristas right now, as FIBBEE joins another automated coffee service, MontyCafe.

In our quest to chronicle the rise of food robots all over the world, following is an email interview with Foodtronics’ CEO Alexandr Khvastunov about FIBBEE. NOTE: Answers in this post were slightly revised after publication as Foodtronics felt the translations weren’t entirely accurate.

SPOON: What is Fibbee?
Aleksandr Khvastunov: FIBBEE is a robot-barista. We believe that it has a female entity so FIBBEE is her given name. Her personality is bright, easy-going and positive.

Besides the fact that she’s an ideal barista who never fails, FIBBEE may give you emotional recharge. She serves coffee to customer in one of the five colorful cups which are supposed to provoke different moods: boost, energy, balance, insight and fun.

How is Fibbee different from Cafe X, Briggo or even MontyCafe?
We’ve been professionally engaged in coffee for the past 8 years. We’ve opened traditional coffee houses (so-called third wave coffee houses), were engaged in the coffee wholesale and other projects.

At some point we understood that robotic retail may give us an opportunity to grow and scale well our love of coffee as of the lack of human factor – FIBBEE is fast, she’s always in a good mood and ready to meet your needs.

We have developed almost all technical components for FIBBEE, from chips and control systems to our own manipulators (specific system of moving objects).

We also have two coffee machine modules and we can brew two drinks at the same time. One manipulator inserts glasses into the coffee machine and when the drink is ready rearranges it into the waiting buffer. Another manipulator swaps coffee from the buffer to one of the 3 areas of issue.

How many different types of drinks can Fibbee make? Can it do hot and cold drinks?
Current menu includes espresso, americano, lungo, cortado, latte, cappuccino, cappuccino light, and coffee with syrups.

Still our customers can customize any drink. For example, they can add milk to black coffee in the required quantity, adjust the amount of foam and milk in cappuccino and latte, or select milk temperature (cold or hot).

In the nearest future we plan to introduce additional types of milk (soybean, oatmeal), various types of coffee beans and drinks with ice and nitro coffee which are being tested right now.

How many Fibbee’s are there and where are they located? How many more do you plan to roll out?
We have 2 robotic coffee bars now, and in July we’re opening the third. By the end of 2019, we plan to open more than 12 in Moscow. We’re creating our own chain and currently do not sell franchises.

Our ambition is to become the largest robotic chain of coffee houses in Russia and Europe. Because we love coffee and know how to make it delicious.

aria coffee roaster

This New Kind Of Coffee Roaster Goes From Room-Temp To 700° In 3 Seconds

Inventor Glen Poss isn’t afraid to rustle some feathers. In fact, he’s betting on it. For nearly 20 years he’s been dreaming up a new way to roast coffee that eliminates the need for coffee sourcing trips, big roasting gear, and even roasting training—three things that coffee industry giants point at to demonstrate top-dogness.

He believes he’s on the cusp of decentralizing the coffee roasting industry with his 20-years-in-the-making invention: The Aria Coffee Roaster. Naturally, we hopped on a call to see what the Aria’s all about.

The idea came to Glen back in 1999 when his friend let him borrow a small home coffee roasting device: “I spun the little machine up, it smoked like crazy, the chaff caught on fire, and it was as noisy as a vacuum cleaner. The machine was s***, but I realized the market and business looked pretty good.”

Glen spent years exploring ways to make coffee roasting accessible to the consumer. He knew if he wanted to enable mass adoption, it couldn’t be a device for hobbyists. It had to be as simple as an appliance. “It can’t be about being an artisan. It’s about getting the customer what they want, in their pajamas, while they’re hungover. It has to be easy as toast.”

He claims he invented three new ways to roast coffee—two of which wouldn’t ever work in a consumer environment. But the third way, which Glen’s not ready fully disclose, is truly novel. “Say it’s ‘zero airflow’ roasting,” he said. “No smoke, no odor, steam, takes less than ten minutes—if they can guess how we do it, I want them to come work for me.”

We can say, however, what the result is: a countertop roaster that can go from room temperature to 700 degrees Fahrenheit in just 3 seconds. There’s no smoke, no odor, and no oxygen in the roasting chamber, which means there’s no risk of the thin chaff catching fire. The single-cell consumer model is expected to retail at $199.

How The Aria Coffee Roaster Works

At first glance, the Aria doesn’t seem to depart from the typical roasting routine: consumers pull out a pouch of pre-portioned green coffee beans sourced and delivered by Aria, scan the RFID chip and select one of the four suggested roast profiles (much like the Bonaverde, or the Kelvin), put the beans in the device, shut the door, and press start.

When the roast is complete, somewhere between four and ten minutes later, cold water is pumped around the roasting chamber, instantly cooling it to a safe 150 degrees.

But here’s where things aren’t so normal. The four recommended roast profiles for each bean include three standard profiles—light, medium, and dark—but also one that completely defies the conventional wisdom of coffee roasting: ‘high delta’.

Glen wanted to recreate the coffee roasting process involved in the Ethiopian coffee ceremony. Rather than being a single roast level from surface to center, these coffees are more like a rare steak, featuring varying roast levels within a single bean and leading to an unusually complex flavor experience (though many will argue this introduces imbalance).

But Glen didn’t want to stop at four options. Consumers can decline the suggested profiles and choose any one of nearly 100 roast profiles that are loaded onto the machine at any point.

There’s also an app that lets the more experimental home roasters take full control over their roast profiles—but there’s a catch: they’ll instantly void the warranty of their machine.

“The app’s a use at your own risk kind of thing,” Glen explained. “If someone wants to try roasting an empty cartridge at 700 degrees for ten minutes and melt the steel, well, that’s on them. We have no control with the app, so there’s no warranty.”

Dreaming Of Disruption In The Coffee Industry

Glen touched on something we’ve written a lot about at The Spoon: the democratization of coffee roasting. By building a commercial model of the Aria, he intends to take roasting away from remote facilities and put it directly in the hands of baristas and cafes.

“Roasting facilities cost a lot of money, labor, and time. Then you have to ship out the beans everywhere,” Glen said. “With our tech, whether it’s in cafes, restaurants, or at home, you don’t need to raise any money or get permits. That’s how we disrupt coffee: we decentralize it.”

But Glen’s not the only one trying to beat the hub-and-spoke model. Bellwether Coffee, whose zero-emission coffee roasters require no permit or ventilation to operate, is already giving the power of on-site roasting to cafes around the country.

Glen’s approach, however, is quite different from Bellwether’s. The Aria roaster is “based on the idea of a multi-engine craft: you can run as many or as little as you need, and if one ‘cell’ dies, you have backups so you never ‘crash’.”

The 4-cell commercial Aria model will enable everyday baristas to roast coffee for customers on demand, with an output of up to 7.5 pounds of roasted coffee per hour.

Once again, this flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which says that coffee needs at least 24 hours to “degas” before it’s ready to be brewed for maximum flavor and balance. Glen isn’t worried, however, because he claims the technology is so different that it enables coffee to be roasted, brewed, and enjoyed within minutes of each other without sacrificing quality.

Glen and his team are actively seeking a CEO who can take the Aria Coffee Roaster to investors, then to market in the next few years.

Briggo Lands its Robot Barista at the SFO Airport Next Month

If you have an early flight out of San Francisco International (SFO) airport at the end of next month, you can caffeinate up with the help of Briggo’s robot barista. The Austin, TX based company announced today that it will launch its automated Coffee Haus robot-coffee kiosk at SFO on July 28th UPDATE: Briggo informed us after publication that it has changed the date and will be up in the coming month.

The Briggo Coffee Haus is a fully automated kiosk that serves a variety of hot and cold coffee and tea drinks, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Customers can order a coffee ahead of time using the Briggo app or purchase one through the machine’s tablet.

The SFO Coffee Haus is the first Briggo machine outside of Texas and will be located inside Terminal 3 next to the security entrance. Though Briggo thinks of itself as a coffee company that sources and roasts its own beans, it will feature rotating blends of Bay Area coffee from Verve and techie-favorite, Sightglass. This will be the second airport location for Briggo’s automated barista: the first one opened at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in July of last year, and a second Briggo machine was added there last month.

Briggo isn’t even the only coffee robot going into SFO this year. San Francisco-based company Cafe X will also be launching its automated coffee kiosk later this summer. We reached out to the company to confirm the installation date and will update when we hear back.

You’ll be seeing a lot more automated eating and drinking experiences at airports in the coming years. Robots like Briggo and Cafe X will be joined by high-end vending machines like Yo-Kai Express, which offer a Michelin star chef-created menu. Food robots will be able to quickly and conveniently feed the high volume of people in a hurry at all hours of the day (and never spell your name wrong on your coffee cup).

To promote its SFO opening, Briggo has hooked up with Lyft to provide Briggo patrons with a 15 percent discount on their next Lyft ride to or from SFO. Normally, we wouldn’t mention marketing campaigns, but this discount is another example of food and beverage companies working with ride-sharing companies to, err, drive traffic. In a similar move, TGIFriday’s has been handing out Uber vouchers to pay for customers’ rides to its restaurants.

We haven’t had Briggo’s coffee yet (haven’t flown to Austin in a while), but it’s got a 4-star rating on Yelp, where customers mostly marvel at the technology. Maybe we’ll need to book a flight down to San Francisco just for a chance to try the coffee.

uKeg Nitro Cold Brew Maker Blasts Past Kickstarter Goal

Summertime is cold brew season, and no cold brew is trendier than nitro cold brew.

Nitro cold brew is essentially cold brewed coffee infused with nitrogen gas and dispensed out of a tap. The result is smooth, lightly-carbonated beverage that drinks like Guinness, and is now so ubiquitous that you can find it at Starbuck’s nationwide.

Since it requires nitrogen gas and a tap, one place you can’t typically find nitro cold brew is in somebody’s home. But uKeg Nitro, a new device on Kickstarter from Portland, OR-based company GrowlerWerks, is aiming to change that. The device lets at-home baristas brew, store, and pour nitro cold brew coffee on their countertop.

To brew, users can either brew their own cold brew in the keg itself or just fill it with pre-made cold brew coffee. Charge the keg cap with Nitro gas, let the pressure build to desired carbonation level, shake to infuse the gas throughout, and that cold brew is ready to pour. The homemade nitro cold brew will stay fresh and carbonated for two weeks.

Suggested retail price for the uKeg Nitro is $199. Early backers can get it for $169, along with two Nitro gas chargers, four coffee filter bags, a coffee funnel and a drip mat. Considering that nitro cold brew often goes for at least $5 a pop at trendy coffee shops, the uKeg Nitro could actually pay for itself in just one summer (though you still have to buy the coffee beans themselves).

Clearly I’m not the only one intrigued by GrowlerWerks’ new product. The uKeg Kickstarter launched on June 5th and reached its $75,000 goal within 90 minutes. At the time of this writing, the uKeg has raised just over $262,000 with one month left to go.

As cold brew rises in popularity, companies large and small are husting to provide solutions to make it at home. PicoBrew has cold brew capabilities for the Pico Z and Pico C. Cuisinart and Dash have devices that will let you make a cup of cold brew — which typically takes at least 12 hours — in just 30 minutes (with varying degrees of success).

I never quite got why people would pay for a device to make cold brew when it’s so easy to do at home: cover ground coffee with water, let sit overnight, and boom — cold brew. (Maybe that’s why the Gravity Cold Brew Coffee Maker failed to meet its Kickstarter goal.) However, the uKeg Nitro adds an extra benefit that most people couldn’t DIY: the creamy fizziness of nitro. Its booming Kickstarter shows that there’s clearly consumer demand for more accessible, affordable nitro cold coffee, especially as summer rolls in.

GrowlerWerks is aiming to ship the uKeg Nitro in early October of this year. As always with crowdfunded hardware projects, there’s a risk that the uKeg won’t meet that October ship date — or even ship at all. However, GrowlerWerks already launched their original uKeg product (for beer, not coffee) on Kickstarter in 2014, which raised over $1.5 million.

While they had a few production hiccups, hopefully GrowlerWerks can leverage the lessons they’ve learned over the past three years — as well as their existing manufacturing partners — to make sure the same problems don’t happen with the uKeg Nitro.

I Tried Willie Nelson’s CBD Coffee

I have a love-hate relationship with coffee. I can’t start my day without it, but by the end of my morning cup I’m often left feeling jittery and anxious.

A new coffee add-on promises to keep all the best part of your daily caffeine fix while doing away with the negative side effects. Cannabidiol (CBD), the non-hallucinogenic chemical in marijuana, has become the new “it” wellness ingredient. It’s also making a big splash into coffee: you can buy CBD coffee K-cups, add CBD sugar syrup to your latté at trendy coffee shops, and even track down cans of CBD-infused cold brew.

But those who like some celebrity with their cannabis-infused cup of joe, they can try the beans from Willie’s Remedy on for size. It’s the first product from Willie Nelson’s (yes, the Red Haired Stranger himself) CBD-centric company. The coffee beans launched in February of this year.

Each 8-ounce cup of Willie’s java contains 7mg of hemp-derived CBD. The coffee beans are covered in full spectrum hemp oil (read: CBD oil) just after roasting, which they absorb as they cure. According to Elizabeth Hogan, Willie’s Remedy’s VP of Brands, who spoke to me on the phone last week, this process allows the CBD oil to evenly distribute through the beans and fully extract into the final cup of coffee.

Obviously I had to try some. I brewed up a cup of Willie’s Remedy Columbian coffee the other day, right as my mid-afternoon work slump started to hit.

The end result tasted… like coffee. Not amazing coffee, but very passable, fairly good coffee. I thought I could detect a slight hint of grassy cannabis flavor on the tail end of my sip, but that could have just been because I was looking for it.

That’s actually the way I felt about most of my CBD coffee experience: I couldn’t tell if I was actually being affected, or if it was mostly placebo. I certainly felt the energy kick that comes with a strong cup of black coffee. But was I also more relaxed? Focused? Calm? I can’t really tell you.

There could be a lot of reasons why I felt so ambivalent towards my first sip of CBD coffee. Maybe I didn’t drink enough. CBD also affects everyone differently, so perhaps I just have a high tolerance for it. Or maybe Willie’s Remedy suffers from the same problems that a lot of CBD food and drink companies do: consistency — or lack thereof.

Assuming each serving of beans contains the exact amount of CBD advertised, you also have disparate brewing methods and water temperatures to deal with. Would CBD coffee made in a French Press have the same effect as that brewed in an industrial coffee pot or an aeropress? Details like this matter. CBD coffee is generally meant to be drunk during a work day; a pick-me-up without the jitters. While too much CBD won’t make you high, it could make you less than motivated for your 3 p.m. meeting.

All CBD products could benefit from some dosing oversight, which was one of the topics broached in the FDA’s public hearing on CBD last week. The FDA has yet to approve CBD as a food-safe ingredient, which means a) it’s technically illegal to sell food or drink containing CBD, and b) nobody is regulating CBD edibles (or drinkables). Companies like TraceTrust are trying to install a universal stamp to indicate that cannabis products contain the exact amount of THC or CBD that they advertise, but they’re still relatively small.

Until it’s approved by the FDA all we can do is trust that CBD-infused food and drink actually contain the dosages they claim. That’s where celebrity affiliations can really help differentiate products. Willie’s Remedy is smart to emphasize its namesake in its branding, knowing it will set it apart from the flood of CBD-infused beverages heading to market (which will get even more crowded after the FDA gives CBD the thumbs-up).

Soon enough I might be able to try my Willie’s Remedy coffee with Snoop Dogg non-dairy CBD creamer. Maybe then I’ll feel a stronger effect.

I Drank a $200 Bottle of Snapchilled Cold Coffee

Summer is around the corner, which means it’s about to be cold brew season. (Hallelujah.)

However, one company has created a way to chill fresh coffee that apparently makes it taste better than cold brew. Founded in 2012, Elemental Beverage Company‘s Snapchiller technology (side note: Great Marvel villain name) can chill a 12-ounce cup of hot coffee to a pre-set temperature in 60 seconds. This process makes a chilled cup of joe faster than cold brew, requires fewer beans, and has a fuller range of flavor.

We first saw the company’s technology in action at the Specialty Coffee Expo back in 2018, when it was still called the Cafe Cold Wave. This year Elemental sized up their tech has begun pre-selling the machines for $5995.

Elemental Beverage Co’s Snapchiller.

I can certainly see higher-end coffee shops investing in the Snapchiller as a faster, cleaner, and cooler-looking alternative to cold brew. But perhaps a bigger market opportunity is Elemental’s new canned Snapchilled coffees, which the company unveiled at the Specialty Coffee Expo this past April.

So far the company has released three varietals featuring single-origin beans from farms in Ethiopia, Columbia, and Burundi. Ryan McDonnell, Elemental’s Chief Coffee and Tea Officer, told me in a phone interview that they’re planning to change the coffees a couple of times per year depending on what’s in season (yes, coffee is seasonal!)

The canned coffees launched in early May on Elemental’s website and are already on backorder. A 6-pack will set you back $29.95, which shakes out to a little under $5 a can — it’s not cheap, but also not significantly more than what you’d pay for a cold brew from your local coffee shop.

Photo: Catherine Lamb.

It also tastes way better. I tried Elemental’s new canned coffees and came to the conclusion that yes, they are indeed a level up from regular cold brew. The coffee was clean, light, and super smooth, without a hint of bitterness. Each coffee also had an incredibly distinct flavor. The back of the cans had details about the processing methods, origin, and tasting notes of each coffee bean. After drinking some I think it’ll be hard to go back to the bland smoothness of regular cold brew.

While Elemental’s canned Snapchilled coffee might be worth the price tag, they also offer a super high-end product that is a bit more of a reach. The company sells a 750 mL bottle of rare Gesha coffee that will set you back — wait for it — $235.

If that price sounds truly shocking to you, well, it did for me too. But according to McDonnell, it’s all worth it. The limited-batch bottles are made with beans that score 90+ on the Coffee Quality Institute’s Q Grading Scale, which puts them in the top 0.1 percent. The beans also cost a whopping $450 a pound.

Elemental also sent me some of this pricey coffee, which comes in what looks like a fine whiskey bottle. It’s packaged along with two tulip glasses that are meant to be frozen before serving. The Gesha will keep for at least two months in the fridge but once its opened is meant to be drunk quickly, like champagne. I tried some of this fancy-pants brew and it was… crazy delicious. Smooth, fruity, and light, I would gladly start every summer day with a cup of the stuff. But would I ever shell out over 200 bucks for it? Not a chance.’

Apparently, plenty of people would. McDonnell said the Gesha coffees are almost out of stock. They plan to keep offering distinctive, higher-end brews highlighting rare beans “on a regular basis.”

Elemental isn’t in retail yet, but they’re doing cold brew pop-ups around their home base of Boston. We could chalk their early inventory sell-out as just a company getting their footing with a new product, but it doesn’t bode well if these Snapchilled coffees take off.

I’m betting that they will, at least once they head into retail. Consumers — especially Gen Z — are starting to care more and more about their coffee, seeking out specialized and sustainable brews. In a sea of bottled and canned cold brews, Elemental’s chilled coffee stands out with its high quality, sourcing transparency, and nuance of flavor.

Cold brew, watch out. It’s Snapchill season.

BKON RAIN cold brew coffee

BKON’s RAIN Tech Extends Ready to Drink Cold Brew Coffee Shelf Life By 5,000 Percent

Ready to drink (RTD) cold brew coffee may be on the verge of another boom. BKON, the company behind the commercial sized Storm Brewer, announced that an independent study has confirmed they’ve essentially cracked the code to RTD cold brew coffee freshness.

The study, conducted in partnership with a “leading coffee roaster” and the third-party lab EMSL Analytical Inc., concluded that BKON’s RAIN (Reverse Atmospheric Infusion) technology increased the lifespan of a cold brew coffee product’s apex freshness—the period where the natural flavors are crisp, clear, and nuanced—from 1-2 days to 120+ days.

“The strength of craft coffee is that it’s nuanced and complex when fresh. The problem is, it’s never been scalable in a packaged form,” Lou Vastardis, Co-Founder of BKON, told me yesterday. “We now enable coffee companies to deliver flavor experiences that are equally as compelling on the packaged cold side as they are on the in-house hot side.”

The twelve-month study involved periodic flavor and aroma testing to see when the first major drop-off in quality occurred compared to traditional methods of preserving freshness. The parties found that one SKU remained consistently fresh tasting for 120 days, with another SKU lasting 180 days before the tasty qualities of apex freshness were lost.

I was lucky enough to try cold brew coffee made with RAIN tech at the BKON booth of last month’s Specialty Coffee Expo. Despite being brewed weeks before the expo, it was surprisingly more complex and nuanced than many of the brews I tasted that had been made moments before on the show floor.

Additional tests were conducted simultaneously to check for microbial growth like lactic bacteria, a generally harmless organism that causes RTD cold brew coffee to begin souring 45 days after being made. EMSL’s tests, however, couldn’t detect any of the tested bacteria until 273 days.

Because of the quality limitations of existing shelf life tech for coffee, brands have historically had to choose either limiting their distribution to reduce shelf time or heat-treating their products, which tends to flatten the flavor experience for the customer. Neither solution helps brands effectively scale the experience of sipping fresh cold brew at a coffee shop.

The tech behind RAIN works by creating a vacuum that sucks out all the gasses from the ingredient structures. Water is then able to flow into those empty spaces, gaining uninhibited access to the ingredient’s natural flavors and aromas. The BKON team can then create complex recipes that manipulate temperature, strength, duration, and frequency of the vacuum cycles to extract precise flavors from the ingredients in a way that’s impossible with low-tech consumer gear. But the major benefit, confirmed by the study, is the flavor security of this method.

Customers will be able to replicate cafe-quality experiences on-the-go, and brands will be able to expand their reach without sacrificing flavor quality or operational inefficiency.

And yet, despite the historical limitations, the RTD cold brew market experienced a 2015-2017 boom, bringing products from innovators like RISE Brewing Co and La Colombe to the shelves of thousands of convenience and grocery stores around the country. Is BKON too late to the cold brew party?

“Nobody misses cafe-level quality when they’re looking at cold brew drinks in the convenience store, because it hasn’t ever been an option in the first place,” Vastardis joked. And he’s probably right: when consumers realize their packaged coffee drink doesn’t have to taste like it was made last month, we’ll likely be in for sweeping product line improvements impacting everything from existing RTD iced brews to up-and-coming CBD-infused coffee drinks.

But Vastardis has his eyes set on more than coffee. BKON plans to adapt its RAIN tech for all types of craft beverages, from teas to spirits to waters.

“When we create a citrus water, for example, we’re using actual parts of a lemon—maybe fermented or dried—and we’re able to create farm-to-bottle waters from natural ingredients (not lab-made flavor additives) that soften the operational burden caused by a short shelf life for beverage companies.”

Keep an eye on your local store’s refrigerated beverage section. If BKON’s tech works as promised, we’re about to enter a golden age of delicious RTD cold brew.

Could Cacao Replace the Coffee Bean? The Creator of Chokkino Sure Hopes So

For the past year and a half, whenever I eat yogurt I’ll usually sprinkle a small handful of cacao nibs on top.

The nibs add a nice crunch and a bitter chocolate taste to my yogurt, and are also considered a ‘superfood’ for the abundant health benefits they deliver: Not only are cacao beans packed full of magnesium and antioxidants, but according to Food & Wine “trigger three neurotransmitters that are associated with elevating mood and mental well being: serotonin, dopamine, phenylethylamine.”

This all sounds good to me, but I know not everyone likes the bitter taste of raw cacao nibs or wants a Grape Nuts like crunch in their yogurt. If this describes you, don’t worry: you may soon be able to tap into the health benefits of cacao by replacing your espresso with a tasty dark brew made from pure cacao powder.

The person behind this idea is Elina Luzi, the founder of a company called Live Better, the maker of a cacao espresso making machine called the Chokkino. I met Luzi last week in Milan at Seeds & Chips, where she not only brewed up a cup of cacao espresso for me (definitely tasty), but also told me why she wants to replace the coffee bean with cacao.

“Coffee is a fantastic beverage, but drinking too much may lead to stress and other problems like anxiety and insomnia,” said Luzi. With the Chokkino, she says they are returning cacao to its roots as a “functional food” where it has served as a powerful drink for thousands of years.

According to Luzi, the Chokkino, which has only shipped so far in her home country of Italy, is currently available in about 350 cafes and restaurants today. One of those locations is the Bologna airport, where I saw a sign advertising Chokkino beverages as I rushed towards my gate.

If you’re not planning on getting to Italy soon, that doesn’t mean you won’t eventually get to try out the Chokkino.  That’s because Luzi and co. have plans to expand beyond her home market of Italy and, eventually even ship a home version of the Chokkino.

“We are developing a consumer machine that will be really game changing,” said Luzi.

And who knows, maybe even some day you may see a Chokkino at your local Starbucks. If that sounds far-fetched, remember: Starbucks longtime CEO Howard Schultz got the idea for what Starbucks could be while on a trip to Milan, Italy.

And just who did Luzi brew a nice cacao espresso for last year while in Milan? Yep, you guessed it.

You can watch my full interview with Luzi below.

A Look at Chokkino, A Cacao Espresso Maker

Cream? Sugar? Cannabis? Coffee’s Latest Trendy Add-On is CBD

There’s not a whole lot new that’s happened in coffee. Sure, Starbuck’s may debut a new kooky frappuccino flavor on the regular (s’mores?!). But in terms of actually changing coffee itself, not much new has come along since we all simultaneously discovered we loved cold brew.

Dave Briskie, President and CFO of wellness conglomerate Youngevity International (YGYI), thinks a new(ish) ingredient is promising to shake up the coffee game: CBD. Cannabidiol (CBD) is the non-hallucinogenic compound in cannabis which wellness influencers have been touting as the new miracle health supplement. It’s also been showing up in gummies, dog food, and a myriad of other food products.

Lately that a includes coffee, too. Maybe you’ve seen it as an add-on option in your local hipster coffee joint, or in a can of cold brew at a health store.

HempFX, a cannabidiol-focused subsidiary of YGYI, is about to release a cannabidiol-infused K-Cup. Each pod has 10mg of CBD isolate that’s water-soluble and, at least, according to Briskie, tasteless. Which is important since cannabidiol is naturally quite bitter. “At the end of the day it has to taste like coffee,” he told me. “I think we cracked the code on that.”

That’s a lot easier said than done. In fact, cannabidiol is notoriously tricky to add to beverages. In addition to its bitter taste, it’s also fat-soluble, so finding a way to add it to liquid is a challenge. That goes doubly when the CBD has to go from a sold (coffee grounds) to a liquid (brewed coffee). Even distribution is another hurdle. Companies want the CBD dosage to be as consistent and reliable as possible; ideally, your first sip of coffee has the exact same amount of cannabidiol as your last.

Briskie wouldn’t give away many details about their technology, but said that HempFX had found a way to make sure that all of CBD infused into the ground coffee ended up in the final cup of joe. This sort of transparency is especially important not only so the consumer knows exactly what they’re, well, consuming, but also for future FDA regulations.

As of now, CBD is not approved by the FDA as a food-safe additive, meaning it’s technically illegal to sell in food or beverage products. (Though the government body is having a hearing on the topic next month, so who knows?) HempFX is hoping to steer clear of any issues by avoiding the word CBD on any packaging. Instead, the company will go with the more FDA-friendly “hemp extract” when their coffee pods hit the market late in May. Hemp may still not be an FDA-approved food ingredient, but the term raises a lot fewer flags than straight-up “CBD.”

HempFX plans to initially sell online and then migrate into retailers. Briskie wouldn’t disclose exact pricing but told me it would be on the upper end of the coffee spectrum.

It may seem counter-intuitive to add CBD, a substance rumored to promote relaxation and anti-anxiety, with caffeine, which keeps us (or at least me) alert and running. But according to Briskie and others, CBD can temper the jittery, anxious effects of caffeine to leave you feeling focused and calm.

There isn’t any solid data to back this up, but that doesn’t mean the demand’s not there. Analysts at Canaccord Genuity project that the U.S. CBD beverage market will reach $260 million by 2022. At the same time, Americans are drinking more specialized coffee beverages (gourmet beans, cold brew, etc.) than ever before. It’s not a reach to predict that cannabinoid-infused specialty coffee will be a big trend, especially if CBD gains FDA approval and becomes fair game for Big Food companies like Coca-Cola and Starbuck’s.

HempFX is far from the only company adding CBD to their coffee beans or cold brew bottles. In addition to the ones listed here, there are several producers making CBD coffee pods, like Diamond CBD, Olala, and BrewBudz. Even Willie Nelson, the Red-Haired Stranger himself, has his own line of CBD coffee beans.

I haven’t tried cannabidiol in my coffee yet, but as someone who occasionally suffers from the jittery effects of over-caffeination, I’m definitely curious. Maybe eventually I’ll even be able to get CBD in my Starbuck’s S’mores Frappuccino.

Truebird to Launch Five Robot Micro-Cafes in NYC This Year

When we first wrote about Truebird, the quiet NYC startup building automated micro-cafes, we didn’t have many details about the company or its go-to market strategy. But I had the chance to chat with Truebird Co-Cofounder and CEO Josh Feuerstein this week, who shared with me some more information about Truebird and how his barista ‘bot fit into the competitive robo-coffee landscape.

THE ROBOT
The first thing I asked him about was about the robotic design Truebird chose. Instead of an articulating arm or a series of rails and grippers, Truebird uses magnetic “pucks” that cradle coffee cups to slide them around a glass surface. While soothing to watch, it didn’t seem to be a particularly fast method for a machine meant to sling morning cups of joe to busy people in high-traffic areas.

“We chose them for a variety of reasons,” said Feuerstein, “Chief among them, we think it is a surprisingly warm and approachable and almost magical experience. For us the experience is really important.” He went on to say that while they are designing for an elegant experience the company is “very happy” with the throughput of the machine.

The machines themselves are smaller than competitors like Briggo and Cafe X. They fit through a standard door and don’t require any plumbing, so Truebirds can be installed easily and in a wide variety of locations.

Truebird Micro-cafe

GO-TO MARKET
Truebird is focusing on New York initially, and will deploy five of its micro-cafes throughout the city by the end of this year. While the company is still determining its pricing and business model, it is a B2B play and will partner with high-volume locations like hotels, hospitals, office buildings, etc. The machines will be owned and operated by Truebird, so the company will be responsible for stocking, maintenance and service.

Feuerstein said that at some point, Truebird will probably open a location that is its own dedicated space with “four walls.”

THE COFFEE
Unlike Briggo, Truebird isn’t going so far as to select and roast its own beans (though Feuerstein didn’t rule out that possibility). Instead, the company is working with roasters in the New York area. Truebird doesn’t offer the same variety of drinks as Briggo or Cafe X as it only carries traditional dairy milk and oat milk.

THE COMPANY
Truebird is 100 percent backed by Alleycorp and has 15 employees.

Geographically speaking, there are now three high-profile coffee robot companies across the U.S. Truebird in NYC, Briggo in Austin, TX, and Cafe X in San Francisco. This doesn’t need to be a zero-sum game as there are plenty of locations around the country that could use a coffee robot to caffeinate consumers. Heck, the San Francisco Airport alone is getting two coffee robots this year. The only question remaining is which robot serves up the tastiest lattes.

If you’re interested in the future of coffee and food robots, you should definitely come to our ArticulATE Summit in San Francisco on Tuesday. C-level speakers from both Briggo and Cafe X will be there. But we literally only have a handful of tickets left, so get yours today!

Truebird Bringing its Robot-Barista Coffee to NYC

It’s the stones. They move like magic in Truebird‘s robot barista demo video, gliding across a glass surface to cradle and transport cups of coffee and lattes to waiting customers (go ahead and watch it down below, it’s mesmerizing). We’ve seen our fair share of coffee robots here at The Spoon, and at first glance, Truebird’s appears to be the least robotic.

We can’t tell you much about Truebird because not much has been written and they aren’t giving much information away. But they are a food (well, coffee) robot company, and food robots and automation are poised to drastically change how we buy our daily meals and beverages. So Truebird is a company we’ll keep an eye on, but for now, here’s what we do know:

Truebird creates automated micro-cafes, similar to Briggo and Cafe X. From the company’s Linkedin page:

We are for the busy people who love and appreciate high quality coffee, and are increasingly curious about where it comes from, and the caring hands that touched it. Through our micro-cafes, Truebird is a serene destination that provides a treat in the form of delicious coffee and a more elevated experience – but delivered efficiently, conveniently, and at a fair price for the busy individual on the move.

Truebird piloted its prototype for three months at New Lab in Brooklyn, and the company’s site says “The next Truebird evolution is coming to select NYC locations later this year.”

Truebird is backed by AlleyCorp, a New York based incubator that also backed MongoDB, DoubleClick and Business Insider.

Truebird Micro-cafe

Like Cafe X and Briggo, Truebird isn’t just about the robotics. It’s also focused on quality coffee. The company lists its own coffee program manager as an employee, but how involved in the coffee part of the equation is it? Is it like Briggo, which roasts its own beans, or more like Cafe X which highly curates the coffee it offers?

We reached out to Truebird to find out more, and will update when we hear back.

What is apparent is that each of these robot coffee companies is creating its own form factor and presenting its version of automation to customers in different ways. Cafe X has its articulating arm front and center and theatricality is part of its design. Briggo’s Coffee Haus, on the other hand hides all the complex machinery. If Truebird’s prototype is any indication, its robotics are more subtle (and with the stones perhaps even more artful), but are also meant to be watched in action.

The question is how fast those stones will be able to move. The whole point of a robot-barista is to sling drinks of consistent quality in high-traffic areas, like airports. While the stones are hypnotic, they won’t calm an impatient commuter waiting on their caffeine. Truebird, however, seems to recognize this, as its own copy reads that it’s for the “busy individual on the move.”

Busy individuals who are curious about the future of robot-made coffee should come to our ArticulATE food robot summit happening on April 16 in San Francisco. We’ll have the Founder and CTO of Briggo as well as the COO of Cafe X speaking, so it’s sure to be something you won’t want to miss!