Another picture of the Bodum Assam glass:

One of the gifts Arieanna gave me this Christmas was a couple of Bodum Assam double-wall glasses. These 7 ounce glasses have a double wall of glass which helps keep your hot drinks hot and cold ones cold. The pictures I took are really bad and they don't make justice to how nice the glasses look, the coffee seems to be floating, a nice effect. Another benefit of the double wall is that the outside of the glass wont sweat so it wont leave any marks on the table.

I don't have any actual data, but I do think that the coffee stayed hot longer than when using our regular cups. The outter wall didn't get hot, just a little warm, so it was easy to hold it comfortably. Thanks Arieanna!

Tags: bodum, assam, tea, coffee, espresso, glassware, glass

The Smart Lid is a new innovation in disposable beverage lids that tells the consumer if the lid is on correctly and if the beverage is hot - it goes from brown to red when placed on, then cools to brown when the liquid becomes less hot. The bottom of the lid will stay brown if, and only if, the lid is on correctly.

Neat application. I'm still more for advocating innovation in the green area - with biodegradable products mostly - than for more plastic. But, it is innovative.

I keep my eye on cool gadgets and whatnot for my Cooking Gadgets blog, and one of my feeds pulled up something interesting. It's called the "Agitor".

The Agitator is a new concept to stir coffee. A button on the bottom of the cup can be pressed and the coffee then stirs, or 'agitates.'

The system involves a small pocket of space, surrounded by a soft plastic membrane, at the bottom of the cup. The membrane has small holes, allowing the liquid to fill the space. By pressing on the space from the below the cup, it forces the liquid back out of the holes, thus "agitating" the contents.

It's the idea of Creighton Schlebach, who wanted an easier way to keep his coffee stirred during moments when he didn't have any free hands. He says you can use it for other stuff too, like instant soup, chocolate milk, and such.

It does have the benefit, I admit, of stirring your coffee in places where it might not be fun to do so, like say a moving vehicle. No hot coffee spills. Then again, I have my lovely mug, and I can just shake the darn thing. ;)

Via Strange New Products

This comes via Popgadget: the Winter Sonata voice cup.

A cup that will whisper sweet nothings to you as you pour in your morning cup of coffee.

Apparently, "Winter Sonata" was a South Korean TV drama with a male star called Bae Yon Joon who's sending middle-aged Japanese women into raptures.

This cup might be rather ugly but as you pour liquid into it, you can hear the show's theme song and the aboved-mentioned Bae Yon Joon whispering "You are the only woman I love. I would love to be with you even after my hair turns gray. I would love to have a baby with your eyes. For you, for our future baby, I offer my warm hands and strong legs to support you. I love you."

I'm not so sure I want a cup that sings to me. Let alone one that says it loves me. But to each their own.

This is a great idea. A Mug with a chalkboard surface on the outside so you can write any message you want and just wipe it clean for the next one.
Why would you want to write a message on your coffee cup? Write your name so people don't accidentally drink from it, leave a message for someone in the morning, specify how much sugar and milk you want in your coffee, keep a record of how many cups you drink. The possibilities are endless.
You can buy it here for about $8.00 USD + shipping. But you could also make your own for far less. Pick one of your cups, go buy some chalkboard paint and apply a few coats to the outside of the cup. Arieanna and I do this to label the contents of the jars in our pantry (ok, it's just a shelf...) and it works great.

Biodegradable cups! Great, no? Except who would have thought that the credit for these would go to the US Navy & Army?

The Biodegradable Coffee Cups were developed so that soldiers could just toss the cups off the boats without harming the marine life. Good idea. But the cups also had to be good enough not to burn hands - the likely delimma in creating the cups in the first place. Oh, and they had to be brown so as not to be visible to enemy spies. Paranoid, perhaps.

Developed by Clovernook Center and International Paper, the cups are what I hope will be taken up by all global coffee houses, especially Starbucks. No news on this front yet, not even a hint. I personally try to use my personal cup whenever possible - it keeps it much hotter and comes guilt free. Well, mostly. I am still buying coffee, after all. :)

Interesting piece over in the comments (I love to read comments!) - Why can't the soldiers just use the folding cups common to earlier in the century? No trees need be cut down in the first place.