In today’s busy 24/7 world, who has time to wait for a hot cup of coffee to cool down? Certainly not the folks backing an unusual, but exciting new Kickstarter campaign for an innovative mug called the Yi-One. Updating the thermos for the new millennium, the Yi-One promises to keep your freshly brewed hot coffee at a scalding 200-degree Fahrenheit temperature, until you want to take a sip, at which point it will cool it to a drinkable 150 degrees in just three seconds flat.
“The technology is well proven and simple,” Yanming Wen, CEO of International Patent Acquisition, the company behind the technology, told Digital Trends. “The double-walled vacuum cavity and the cavity of the temperature equaling heat exchanger are partitioned by an insulated layer — with a centered hole for inserting of a solid and long-lasting drinking straw and a few communicating holes serving as coffee flowing passage. The temperature-equalizing metal of the cavity quickly and simply equalizes 20 to 30 cubic centimeters of scalding hot coffee that flows into the cavity by [50°F] within 3 seconds.”
In terms of the project’s origins, Wen tells a familiar story: That of the caffeine connoisseur forced to undergo an agonizing wait each day for their coffee to cool down.
“There was no way I could resist the alluring aroma of coffee that I needed so badly to kick-start my day,” he explained. “I often took a few sips of the hot coffee that ended scorching my lips and often spilled on me and my car seat. Sipping hot coffee kept in a mug on the go was always an inevitable trouble.”
If Wen has managed to crack this problem (which, as he noted, is one shared by millions of coffee drinkers), Yi-One will be onto a winner. We’ll wait until we’ve gotten the chance to test it for ourselves before proclaiming it a savior for coffee-drinkers everywhere, but it certainly sounds intriguing. As ever, we offer our usual warnings about the potential risks inherent in crowdfunding campaigns. However, if you’re keen to get involved, head over to the project’s Kickstarter page, where a Yi-One cup starts at $79. Shipping is set for early 2019.
