Hacking Caffeine
Coffee snobs—in the form of roboticists, computer scientists, and engineers—are building businesses that claim to brew a better cup of coffee. Take a look inside the entrepreneur-fueled coffee arms race, which has attracted more than $300 million in venture capital.
ICED LATTE WITH A SPLASH OF NITROUS OXIDE
La Colombe Draft Latte $12 for a four-pack
Two years ago, La Colombe’s Todd Carmichael was spraying whipped cream into his then-4-year-old son’s mouth. The co-founder of the Philadelphia-based roaster and café chain realized he could make a portable latte by adding liquefied gas to a mixture of milk and cold-pressed espresso, just as Reddi-wip adds nitrous to its sugary cream.
THE RESULT Milk and espresso are compressed in a can that has a special interior valve. When the can is opened, the valve releases a reserve of nitrous oxide into the milk-espresso mixture, which makes it foamy and gives the beverage the full-bodied quality of a latte freshly made with steamed milk.
