I’m here to confess that I don’t actually like coffee and have recently been banned from drinking caffeine at all (by a real doctor! not just the guy on the corner who sells me tomatoes!), which has made working the graveyard shift a fun experiment in sleepwalking.
So I’m not well-versed in the fancier forms of latte — you know, the kinds where you have little hearts and leaves and whatnot etched into the foam on top? I’ve never seen it in practice at all. I assume it’s quite difficult to do and only available at the snootiest of coffee crabitoriums.
The Ripple Maker, a new latte-printing machine from Steam CC, aims to make latte art more accessible for you to try and pick up women at your local java hole via foam one-liners. The $1,000 machine is the size of a regular countertop coffee maker, but it has an interface similar to a 3D printer that then “ink-jet” prints coffee extract from a “Ripple Pod.” Your barista can choose from a variety of imprints over the machine’s WiFi interface. You can also create your own text, or customize your own design with a smartphone app.
This of course means downloading your Facebook events on to your cappuccinos, for some reason.
In addition to the thousand-dollar price tag, there’s a $75 yearly service-plan fee. That may seem like a serious investment for smaller businesses, especially since the Ripple Maker takes 10 seconds per cup to customize a latte, which would really slow down the morning caffeine rush. The trade-off, however, would be branding your company on to every order in a way they can’t do at Starbucks (yet).
It’s also pretty cool to think your customers can download the Ripple app and send in a personal photo to have printed up on their coffee. You say you love your meemaw, but are you prepared to drink her head?
German airline Lufthansa has already bought in to the program, so expect to be paying extra on your next vacation to have their logo steamed in to your in-flight meal.
Steam CC rolled out the Ripple Maker last week to six different coffee shops. They plan to make the machines widely available in September.
(Via Geek.com and coffeeripples)