Wolfgang Puck Disposable Instant-hot Latte

"unslaked lime" or quicklime as this story calls it is the material used to procide heat in an exothermic reaction with water in the base of the can It's made from calcium carbonate, heated with prodigious amounts of natural gas to turn the stone into CaO. In order to effect this conversion, the limestone must be heated to temperatures in excess of 1000°C (1800°F), approximately the same temperature as required to vitrify clay to pottery. There are huge amounts of embodied energy in the CaO. Only a small part is liberated to warm the food, the rest up the stack and in the trash. Once slaked with water it becomes souble calcium hydroxide, which is strongly alkaline (as high s pH=12. Nice touch for anyone who contacts a leaky can base and gets it in their eyes on on their skin.

A similar boneheaded thing was attempted a few yaers back for the opposite purpose: can chilling. They actually designed a beer can that had double wall filled with refrigerant 134a, designed to off-gas and chill down the beer once the tab was pulled open. After a huge outcry it was canned in the EU and never made it to the US.

One article on this mentioned that the can is really really heavy. I don't really see this taking off (hopefully.. fingers crossed), but I have taken the small step of email Wolfgang Puck Ind about my own personal boycott.

"Once slaked with water it becomes souble calcium hydroxide, which is strongly alkaline (as high s pH=12. Nice touch for anyone who contacts a leaky can base and gets it in their eyes on on their skin."

That is correct, until it absorbs CO2 and becomes...(gasp! horror!) chalk. You could just add sand and have yourself some dandy mortar. I highly doubt they are going to use nothing but chemically pure lime in the heating mix, as that reaction tends to be a bit hotter than just 'warm my coffee.' More like 'melt my carafe.' I'm sure there is some kind of moderator in the mix to slow things down to a more reasonable rate and help neutralize the ph once the reaction is complete. I doubt the end result is anything more hazardous than a chunk of limestone.

I've got this from their website:

"The OnTech container has been designed to meet guidelines required for recyclability. It is primarily composed of polypropylene (PP), a readily available resin product, which has been produced for many years and is classified as a #7 recyclable. Container ends are composed of metals that also meet federal regulations for recycling. Post Consumer Recycling (P.C.R.) of polypropylene materials is on the rise, as more of the material becomes available for secondary processing methods.

The OnTech self-heating container has been awarded the Grune Punkt (The Green Point). This means that our container has been approved for utilization in the strict European recycling and waste system."

But again--what about the recycling issues? What do we do with this safe/unsafe as it is once we've finished our coffees?

Finally! My prayers have been answered! I have been waiting for a product like this to come to the market for a long time. They are very successful in Japan and I'm sure they'll do well here in US. I hope they will expand their product beyond beverages to food.

We'll hve to assume that the lime slurry is designed to be sealed from the atmosphere unless accidentally punctured right? Otherwise it would drip out on users. My point was that if a car drove over it and a kid then touched it he would get a chemical skin burn before atmpshoeric C02 had a chance to neuralize it back to carbonate state. Look at a material safety data sheet about contact hazards: same cautions expressed.

Rather than buffer or otherwise moderate it, they would titer the amount needed to correspond to the container's volume of liquid product and the desired thermal endpoint. Cheaper way to go.

I really don't like the image of someone driving down the road eating beef stew with a spoon. Crazy lifestyle,risky to others, and a waste of resources.

MORE USELESS JUNK. "...seven minutes."??!!?! I can go to the store and purchase a fresh product in less time.

This falls into the "drinks I don't care for" category, simply because it is premixed, and not made to my tastes.

I also hate pre-sweetened teas, and other latte-type drinks (like $tarbucks double-shot). I don't happen to like my coffee or tea loaded up with sweeteners, but try finding one without!

If you want a hot latte to go, aren't there enough coffee joints in this country by now that you won't have to go out of your way? Heck, if you like lousy drinks like this, many quick-mart, 7-11 type joints have machines.

I make at least 2 roadtrips weekly -- If I want a latte, I can swing by my local coffee house, and I'm in-and-out in 5 minutes with a drink made the way I like it.

Next, they'll be selling a pill you swallow. It then heats up and expands to a latte in your stomach. Words on the packet tell you how much you enjoyed your $7 latte-caplet!

How lazy have we become?

So I'm about to undertake a rather long cold sailboat race. Where boiling water is a bit of a pain in the ass. Having something like this would be great!

After an entire day in the field with a SAR (Search and Rescue) unit, trying to save some lost idiot up on Mt. Hood, this will be mighty nice. I'll go uy a case as soon as it appears.

This is sad. Doesn't anyone (besides liberal green tree huggers) think about consequences and future generations? All this for a cup of freakin' joe...

Well... a french latte is called "Café au lait". Caffe Latte is the same thing but in italian.

Someone mentioned using this for food. A company down the street from my own company has been doing just that for years now and their system utilizes an environmentally friendly system of heating. The company has been supplying our troops with hot meals for some time now.

http://www.heatermeals.com/

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I saw crates of it for sale at the Hawthorne Fred Meyer, portland, yesterday.

We had self heating coffees in the UK a few years ago. They were regular Nescafe and tasted like coffee from a thermos flask. They were a great idea for driving. It lasted for about 6 months and then they were withdrawn. The can took about 90 seconds to heat up and the result was drinkable.
Various companies have since tried the same idea, the current one being an espresso with sugar.
The Cans always look big, but unfortunately the mechanism is usually about 60-70% of the total volume !
Don't expect a big drink !

Does anyone remember the military's MRE (meal ready to eat) heating bag? This is the same thing, except instead of using a bag, and adding the water, and food manually, you just have to push a button and voila, steaming hot stomach goodness. That's ingenius! I hope these guy's do well and make an effort to offset the environmental hazards while also helping disaster victims, etc.

Meals for military personnel stations in out-of-the-way places is very different from people who live where any Starbucks is about 5 minutes away. (Come on, people, they grow like fungus!)

What a waste of materials. yeah, I bet it's easy to recycle...See how they're trying to talk about the RISE of recyclability of the product? That means you can probably recycle it in about 2 cities. Not to mention that the can is made of different parts and someone would have to be paid to take them apart. Not likely for something so small. And how would that person protect him/herself from the chemicals within the can?

What else do you expect from a man who serves foie gras, though?

I bought a bunch of these for an intercollegiate football (between 10 colleges) event back in February as a fundraiser for our organization. I bought about 100 of them. Since it's usually cold as hell at these events we figure this might be a good idea. Plus we didn't have to deal with getting fresh water to make coffee or hot chocolate. Anways, we were selling them for around $4.00 a can. It was slow at first but once a couple of ppl started buying one and showing it to their friends, we started getting really busy. we sold out of them in an hour. So we had to make another WP Latte run. We ended up buying a bunch more.

Basically...it can be a good product for the convenience factor and also for cold event fundraiser!

im drinkin one of these wonderful lattes right now and i have to admit its tasting great

We live in a world of choices this is just another choice. I like them, not to say I don't like my coffee from home or Starbuck's. There is room for variety and if you don't like it don't buy it.

I had to try one. I enjoyed it. I then went to their website to figure it out. Which through the wonders of the internet I ended up here to read the comments. I have to add to the recycling issue. In MI it is next impossible to find anywhere to even drop off your papers let alone recycleables. You are worried about a single product having an impact when a vast majority of this state can't even try to do the simplest recycling because the facilities still don't exist and aren't widespread yet!

I've tried these and they are very good. The cost is about the same, maybe a few cents less than the Starbucks equivelent. The cans are not heavy at all and mostly plastic, which does recycle.

I love these things. I dont understand what your problems with this product really is. I think im going to go out and buy a huge case of these and hand them out to all my friends and the managers of all the major food distributors in the area. And its too bad that the self chilling can didnt take off either.

self-heating sake containers have been around for quite a while in Japan. made of glass or steel, as I remember. dont know what the heating medium is.

I love the new Wolfgang Puck self-heating lattes!

Just wish they would now make a sugar free - fat free one! (Starbucks has a sugar free, fat free latte so I know it can be done!)

Has anyone been sprayed with hot coffee upon opening the thing? It tasted fine, but I couldn't drink it until I wiped the coffee off myself and my computer!

I've bought a few of these and have to say my feelings are mixed. The first one barely heated up enough to even call 'luke warm' (and yes, I waited 10 minutes). The second was great - nice and hot, tasted good. The one I tried today was a complete bust - it didn't heat AT ALL (the pink "hot spot" stayed the exact same color) and I couldn't twist the top to open it - a complete waste of money. I think I'd buy the product if it worked more than 1/3 times!

I think these are great. Try lasting four days without electricity after a hurricane and not having any coffee! Can't run down to the store, they don't have electricity either. The coffee tastes very good and they worked each time for me. For times without the convenience of regular coffee, these are lifesavers.

I bought one of each flavor. I have to admit that after driving hours everyday in the winter it's a nice thing to have in the car. The flavor is good and I like the idea of only 100 calories each. Although at $3.00 a can it's a bit pricey at the time.

I know many people have their own ideas about the self heating lattes and not everyone is going to agree. However, I do Team Penning which is a horse event that goes for at least 2 days during the weekend and runs at least 8 hours or more. Most places that we Team Pen at doesn't have a concession stand to get coffee and their is not a starbucks or any other coffee stand next to the arena, so these Wolfgang Puck Self Heating Latte is a great idea for us that do not have access to getting coffee while riding our horses. This Idea is also great for the hunting season and campers as I have not seen an expresso stand set up in the woods.

As far as people saying this product will not make a profit, well maybe not as big as starbucks but I know for a fact that several hunters and horseback riders will be purchasing this product any time we can find them!

I must be way behind the times, but I just found out about it today --when I watched my ReplayTV version of the new Numb3rs. The idea seems very interesting to me and I'm about to buy a case to try it out (doesn't seem too bad a price $29.88 for a case of 12 is only about $2.49 a piece.)

It might be a waste of money, but I work for hours without a break and I'm tired of my coffee being ice cold by the time I'm able to drink it. And believe me, too many energy drinks really can make you sick -- and my job involves handling vast amounts of money and I really don't want to mess that up. So, self-heating coffee? Neat to me.

The WP brand doesn't seem to be available anywhere online, but OnTech's site offered me a link to their personal brand, Hillside.

I am hugely amused by the sheer amount of Astroturfing going on in the comments. "This stuff tastes great! It's the bestest product ever! I'm going to buy a whole freakin' case of the stuff!" Uh-huh. Say, you wouldn't be a distributor of the stuff who's trying to get rid of a few cases, would you?

First of all, it doesn't taste good, unless your previous exposure to coffee has been in the form of lukewarm Sanka strained through your dirty socks. It's thin, and the odor of hot plastic from the heating element overrides whatever coffee taste might have gotten in by accident. And I love how the 'turfer suggests all these outdoorsy activities (sailing, riding horses, mountain rescue) that would create the risk of the cans getting ruptured and releasing the chemicals. Good luck with explaining to your vet how your horse got quicklime burns, dude.

I have tried the wolfgang puck Latte in the self heting can twice. Both times the can leaked all ofve my desk at work. WE have no way of getting coffee on the weekends or after 5:00 p.m. during the weekdays. I thought this coffee would be perfect. What a disappointment and wast of money.

I have tried the wolfgang puck Latte in the self heting can twice. Both times the can leaked all ofve my desk at work. WE have no way of getting coffee on the weekends or after 5:00 p.m. during the weekdays. I thought this coffee would be perfect. What a disappointment and wast of money.

"How do you justify this?"

What makes you think they need to? Sorry, there's no Central Body of Good Ideas that new products get vetted through. If you don't like it, don't buy it. I don't like it, so I won't buy it, but I'm not about to put on a sandwich board and go tromping around proclaiming the evil development of consumer products.

Other posters have mentioned that yeah, the can recycles just fine. Some have mentioned that it doesn't taste very good. (Big shocker there.) Yet others have mentioned that the same technology makes hot meals for soldiers and refugees. But, your knee-jerk reaction is "Grab the pitchforks and head for the castle!"

There are lots of things we can do to improve the world around us. Worrying about the power consumption of electric shavers or self-heating nasty tasting coffee cans is not on that list.

Regarding the taste issue, I think they are fine as a novelty drink to have once in awhile. I quite like them, but not to replace a REAL latte. However, my issue with them is that probably 50% of the ones my husband and I have bought have been defective. Usually, ALL the cans are dented into a triangular shape. (I have seen this at 4 separate stores) They say not to purchase if dented. Secondly, we have had a number of them either fail to open or fail to work. If the ring tab on the bottom breaks off before it pops the top, you're SOL. That has happened to me 3 times. (Once, I was actually able to pry it open with a screwdriver, not so lucky on the others) We have had at least three that did not activate at all. The only recourse I know of is to take them back to the store, which is a pain...but it seems to me that if this is happening to me, it must be happening to others, as well. I hope that a redesign is coming in the future...I guess we should both just quit purchasing them until then.

more wasteful junk. it may seem small to some people but the dire ecological situation we're in now is the result of cumulative factors. part of making a difference is being conscious of the small things and changing our behaviors and habits. our children and grandchildren will suffer from our desire for convenience if we aren't conscious of what we do and who we support.

it's also ironic that wolfgang puck has a line of organic soups out. and i agree about the staged positive comments. how about putting the same energy you're using to hawk the product into doing something good for the world.

I haven't tried Wolfgang Puck's self-heating coffee, but have tried another brand called Hillside and it was really good. I bought a box of 12 and out of those, none of the cans leaked nor did I have any problems with them heating up.

I thought it tasted pretty good,so did my husband and some friends who tried it as well. I am going out tomorrow to buy a few for my husband to have while he's out in the field. He's in the Army and this will be great since its so cold out right now. As for the can being dented into a triangle shape...they're all like that so they have room to expand.
I did have a problem with the tab breaking off the bottom of the can but we just pried it off with a butter knife. It did take some muscle to push the little button in so it would heat. But, if you're stuck out in the wilderness for days or weeks the little hassle is worth it!

So, I tried this product for the first time last weekend and it tasted pretty damn good! For about the price of a Starbucks latte, you can get an on the go drink that's available and hot whenever you want it.

The only oddity I found is that after I drank the product, my teeth hurt for hours afterwards. I don't know if it's a result from the drink itself, or if my mouth just has major issues. I think I will try it once more and if my teeth hurt again, then I will not try it again.

I do think that's it's a great idea and if there are enviromental issues, then they should look into improving on the product. Otherwise, I wish WP and the company the best of luck!