This $14,000 coffee maker doesn’t need wasteful pods to make drinks

By Krystle Vermes June 8, 2015

How much do you love the convenience of having a coffee maker? Depending on how fancy you’re willing to get, there is now a machine with a $13,250 price tag on the commercial market, according to Wired.

You can thank the company BKON for the invention. BKON’s original goal was to create a machine that could make specialty drinks on a whim. It achieved its objective, and the result is a device called the Craft Brewer. Instead of using wasteful K-Cups, the machine goes all natural with ingredients right from the cupboard.

The Craft Brewer is about the size of a vacuum cleaner canister. Instead of placing a pod inside of the device, you add ingredients, such as coffee or tea. Then, you select a pre-programmed recipe from the cloud-enabled tablet on the side of the device. Depending on what you tell it to do with the ingredients, you’ll have coffee, tea, or flavored water as the end product.

Each recipe has a code that determines the amount of vacuum force, water, and temperature that needs to be used to make the drink. As it stands, the Craft Brewer can create a beverage for you in less than a minute.

Brothers Lou and Dean Vastardis, the inventors of the Craft Brewer, believe that the device produces more layers of flavor that other methods of drink-making. At the moment, they’re working with a scientist to get hard data to support their claims.

The Vastardis brothers launched BKON in Philadelphia in 2014. The two of them are also responsible for creating the recipes programmed into the device. Whole Foods and Panther Coffee have teamed up with the brothers in connection with their commercial venture.

At the moment, the Craft Brewer can only be found in a small number of commercial stores. However, the Vastardis say they intend to create a more affordable version for homeowners soon. Prepare to say goodbye to automated drink making as you know it.

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Krystle Vermes is a professional writer, blogger and podcaster with a background in both online and print journalism. Her…

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