Great Coffee Flavor From A To-Go Cup?

Riedel revolutionized how we drink and appreciate wine by emphasizing the shape of the glass so that wine projects its optimum aromas, which, as we all know, are keys to a wine's flavor.

Can Vaporiety do the same thing with how we appreciate and enjoy coffee?

Let me say first off that — though my day job is as a wine, food, and travel writer — I've been moonlighting as a principal in a startup coffee company called Vaporiety. Vaporiety doesn't grow coffee, brew coffee, sell coffee, or make fancy cups to better enjoy coffee.

Rather, it's a fresh, new technology that we believe will help the coffee fanatic enjoy a fresh brew in the worst possible situation — when the fanatic is drinking coffee from a to-go cup or travel mug. Everyone will agree that drinking coffee on the go is a drama in which we're making the best of a bad situation. We don't have time to stop and smell the coffee, so we carry it with us, trying not to spill it or burn ourselves while drinking it, all the while lamenting the fact that it doesn't taste as good as it should because of the closed lid.

One of my partners is David Pensak — a scientist who doesn't drink coffee — came up with the obvious answer: If the lid is the problem, then change the lid.

So this Wizard of Lids came up with a technology — which he was sane enough to patent as tightly as a hen house door in fox country — that uses membranes that let the aroma out (in fact it concentrates it) while not letting the coffee slosh out. And it really does make the coffee taste like real coffee while still allowing it to be drunk safely.

Is it the next big-coffee drinking idea? I can't say for sure. But I've been enjoying drinking from my beta cup for the past few months, so we may be onto something.