Patent Application
20200107672
Over 2 billion cups of coffee are consumed world-wide, every day. Coffee is a drink that is brewed from coffee beans, which are the seeds of the coffee tree. A coffee tree grows a fruit known as coffee cherries which contain coffee beans. Removing the pulp of the coffee cherries, drying, fermenting, and milling results in what is commonly referred to as the “green coffee bean.” The green coffee bean is dry, rough to the touch, and capable of being stored for later use.
Green coffee beans are then roasted, and grounded before brewing. Brewing with whole beans taste better and last longer when compared to pre-ground coffee as later can grow stale. However, commercially roasted coffee beans are considerably more expensive than green coffee beans. Further, commercially brewed whole beans will grow stale if they are kept in your pantry over a period of time. Consumers generally buy roasted coffee or pre-grounded coffee, and the unfortunate truth is that they are unused for a lengthy period of time, causing them to go stale due to moisture, oxidation, and carbon dioxide depletion. For these reasons, many choose to brew the green coffee beans at home for better taste and freshness.
When coffee is roasted, CO2 gas formed inside the bean can affect the flavor of your coffee. For better taste, degassing of CO2 gas is required for a several days prior to brewing. This degassing process is the reason roasters start selling their coffee a few days after the roast date, and coffee is at its best when made from beans roasted no more than two weeks ago. Unfortunately, commercially roasted whole bean starts to lose flavor in a few days, and retails stores are frequently selling bags of roasted beans that are more than 2 weeks ago. Unlike milk, which goes bad within a few weeks, green coffee beans seems to have a longer shelf life. However, there is a significant difference in taste between fresh roasted beans a few days old and those roasted beans that are one month old.
Degassing can vary depending on the type of coffee and roast. Thus, it may take from 2-12 days until the coffee is ready to brew for best tasting coffee. However, the purchased roasted coffee beans have to be consumed within a short amount of time as oxygen starts to make its way into your beans which in turn cause the staleness. Additionally, when the consumer purchases roasted coffee beans, the consumer no longer controls the flavor.
Fresh roasted coffee beans are better in taste and quality of your coffee can be improved by brewing your own coffee using your own freshly ground beans. Accordingly, there is a need for a single convenient system that can roast, degass and brew so that a user has more control over the brewing process to fit one's taste and brewing method preferences.
Further limitations and disadvantages of convention and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with embodiments of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.
Other aspects, advantages, and salient features of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, which, taken in conjunction with the annexed drawings, discloses exemplary embodiments of the invention.
One aspect of invention is to provide a single coffee system where roasting, degassing, and brewing can be achieved such that a fresh coffee can be brewed for a better and fresh taste.
Another aspect of invention is to provide an economical coffee system by offering roasted beans at home, office or at your own venue by eliminating the need to purchase the roasted bean from a third party roaster.
Another aspect of invention is to provide a single coffee system which enable a user to selectively adjust the roasting time and/or degassing duration to accommodate each user's preference.
Another aspect of invention is to provide an automatic roasting system that is fast and easy in which the coffee beans are roasted to one's preference for fresh and flavorful coffee.
Another aspect of invention is to provide more coffee options where users can select and combine different whole bean types and apply different roasting styles to obtain unique blends for themselves.
Another aspect of invention is to provide an automatic coffee maker that allows to adjust time, temperature, and fan speed during roasting procedure, and to enable to selectively save and change the roasting preferences for subsequent roasting.
A further aspect of invention is to provide more coffee options where users can select and combine different whole bean types and apply different roasting styles to obtain unique blends for themselves.
Yet, a further aspect of invention is to shorten the lengthy degassing process that last a few days into a few minutes such that all in one system can provide an automatic roasting, degassing and brewing that is easy and fast for fresh and flavorful coffee at home, office, or any venue.
The above and other aspects, features, and advantages of certain exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be more apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
The following description describes certain embodiments. The following discussion shall be understood to be only for the purpose of enabling a person of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the subject matter of any claims that are presently pending or may later be added, or which may issue in any patent. It shall be understood that the following embodiments are not limiting and nothing is essential or critical unless specifically designated.
Referring to
In certain embodiments, the roaster/cooler 110 can also cool the roasted coffee beans. After roasting, the roaster/cooler 110 cools the roasted coffee beans from a roasting temperature to a near room temperature. Note that the grinder 130 can fail when roasting hot freshly roasted beans, causing the steel burrs of the grinder 130 to absorb the heat and unnecessarily wear down.
In other embodiments, the roaster/cooler 110 can be implemented as a separate unit so that the roasting can be achieved in one container and the cooling can be achieved in another container. In this embodiment, the roaster 110 can drop the roasted coffee beans into a separate cooler located directly below or adjacent thereto. A tunnel can be provided to transfer the roasted coffee beans to the grinder 130.
The grinder 130 grinds the roasted coffee beans into ground coffee. It should be noted that many commercially available grinder can be implemented, for example, a blade grinder, a burr grinder, etc. The grind size can be adjusted using a button 117a so that the user can control optimal grind sizes to improve the flavor when brewing. The vacuum-capable chamber 140 receives the ground coffee in a vacuum chamber. In certain embodiments, a vacuum pump can remove air from the vacuum chamber with the ground coffee disposed, therein.
Note that when the roasted coffee is grounded, degassing significantly speeds up. The finer the grind, the larger the gas volume is released as the more cells that store CO2 gases are broken up and released. When the grounded coffee is in a vacuum chamber, according to one embodiment, vacuuming will place the ground beans in a negative-pressure environment to promote movement of gases. After undergoing the vacuum process, the grounded coffee are ready for brewing.
In another embodiment, when the ground coffee is in a vacuum chamber, the vacuum 140 may be configured to increase the vacuum and decrease the vacuum at constant or variable intervals. As gases flow due to a pressure differential, increasing and decreasing vacuum would have a pumping effect on the ground coffee which would promote the movement of gases out of the ground coffee. Thus, degassing can be enhanced by modifying the negative-pressure gradient when vacuuming the ground coffee in the vacuum 140.
Further, while the ground coffee undergoes the vacuum process as described above, a steam can be applied to increase oxidation according to an embodiment. All chemical reactions have higher reaction at higher temperatures. Thus, a combination use of steam and the use of vacuum would remove the volatile components in coffee, thus the ground coffee degassed at an enhanced rate according to the teachings of present invention.
The vacuum-capable chamber 140 may be implemented as to incorporate other types of treatment of the ground coffee. In certain embodiments, the vacuum-capable chamber 140 may be equipped with a centrifuge in order to spin the coffee grounds at high speeds, which may aid degassing in combination with the application of steam, and/or vacuum. The vacuum-capable chamber 140 may be equipped with a blower in order to introduce the movement of air over the ground coffee, with may aid degassing in combination with one or more of the application of steam, vacuum, and/or centrifugal spinning. The vacuum-capable chamber 140 may be implemented as to withstand pressure, and be equipped with an air pressurizer to generate positive pressure within the vacuum-capable chamber. Application of positive-pressure to the ground coffee may aid degassing in combination and/or sequence with one or more of the application of steam, vacuum, centrifugal spinning and positive pressure. It is understood any combination or sub-combination of these processes may be utilized, and any sequence of the combination or sub-combination may be utilized in order to achieve the desired result.
After vacuuming, the filter 160 receives the coffee grounds from the vacuum-capable chamber 140. The filter 160 can be implemented with a bloomer 170. The coffee grounds after degassing are further exposed to a bloom procedure in which CO2 chemicals are discharged by applying hot water via the bloomer 170 within the filter 160. In certain embodiments, the bloomer 170 uniformly infuses an amount of water from the water tank 105, causing the coffee grounds to bloom. When hot water touches the coffee grounds within the filter 160, the remaining trapped CO2 gases are further discharged. In certain embodiments, such as an espresso maker, the bloomer infuses an amount of steam, causing the coffee grounds to bloom. In certain embodiments, the vacuum-capable chamber 140 and the filter 160 can be implemented as a single unit so that the vacuuming of CO2 chemicals can be operated, as explained above, while the ground coffee from the grinder 134 is output and displaced in the filter 160 so that both vacuuming and blooming can occur in the filter 160. The filter 160 may be connected to an air inlet 155, facilitating introducing of air into the filter.
After blooming, water from the water tank 105 is poured on the coffee grounds. The coffee grounds mix with the heated water, allowing the coffee aromatics to mix with the water, resulting in coffee. The filter 160 allows the coffee to pass through to the pot 180, while retaining the coffee grounds.
Referring to
The green coffee beans can be placed into the roaster 110 by detaching the cover 111 and removing the peal filter 112, and placing the green coffee beans in the cup 113. In certain embodiments, the cover 111 and the peal filter 112 can be fit to one another, such that the cover 111 and the peal filter 112 can be removed simultaneously. It should be noted that in other embodiment, the cover 111 and the peal filter 112 can be implemented as a single unit.
The fan 114 is disposed directly under the openings or mesh bottom of the cup 113. The heating elements 115 comprising, for example, heating coils generate heat and heat the air proximate to the heating elements 115. The heat source may be from a wide range including electricity, wood, natural gas or petroleum gas. The fan 114 is configured to blow through the openings or mesh bottom of the cup 113 causing the air heated by the heating elements 115 to heat the green coffee beans fast and toss the green coffee beans evenly about the roaster 110. The speed of fan 114 can be adjusted to be increased or lowered to adjust for the beans becoming lighter during the roasting process, in order to prevent the beans from chipping. The fan speed can be also selectively controlled by a user for fine tuning roasting of the beans according to user's liking.
The roaster 110 can be easily controlled to heat the green coffee beans for a user selectable period of time, and may also be fully adjustable for users, including experienced roasters. As such, the roaster 1110 may be capable of roasting any kind of coffee including expresso beans. The user selectable period of time can be based on desired levels of roasting the green coffee beans, such as light roast, medium roast, and dark roast. As seen in
Returning to
The roaster 110 may generate a considerable amount of heated air. In some embodiments, the detachable cover 111 and removable peal filter 112 may channel the air through vents in the detachable cover 111. In other embodiments, as seen in
Referring to
Returning to
In an alternate embodiment, as shown in
In another embodiment, the roaster 110 can also cool the roasted coffee beans. After roasting the green coffee beans, the heating element 115 can be turned off, while the fan continues to operate, blowing ambient air through the bottom of the roaster 110.
Referring again to
Referring to
In the above both embodiments, the pre-roasted coffee beans can be dropped into the grinder 130 without performing any roasting and cooling operations. As a result, the pre-roasted coffee beans from another vendor or any purchased pre-roasted coffee beans can be used for a regular grinding and brewing capabilities provided by the coffee roaster and degasser 100.
Referring to
The vacuum pump 152 can vacuum the air out of the hollow 151 for a predetermined time, such as 30 seconds to 1 minute. In certain embodiments, this can be set by the user. In another embodiment, the vacuum pump 152 can increase the vacuum and decrease the vacuum at constant or variable intervals to cause a pressure difference during vacuum operation which in turn would cause CO2 gas to move out of the ground coffee. During vacuum operation, the steamer 200 may generate steam to be applied to the ground coffee in the vacuum-capable chamber 140 to exert the molecules of ground coffee to enhance degassing process.
After vacuuming the ground coffee, the vacuum 140 releases the ground coffee into the filter 160. In certain embodiments, the vacuuming step can be skipped by keeping open both the top retractable opening 153 and the bottom retractable opening 154, allowing the ground coffee to drop directly into the filter 160. For example, the vacuum-capable chamber 140 can be configured to periodically self-test the vacuum pump 152 and detect for leaks using a vacuum-pressure sensor. When the vacuum pump 152 is found to be malfunctioning, the vacuum 140 can keep both the top retractable opening 153 and bottom retractable opening 154 open. As an another example, if the user wishes to use already pre-roasted coffee beans, then the roasting operation and the vacuum operation can be skipped.
As previously described, the vacuum-capable chamber 140 may be implemented as to incorporate other types of treatment of the ground coffee. In certain embodiments, the vacuum-capable chamber 140 may be equipped with a centrifuge in order to spin the coffee grounds at high speeds, which may aid degassing in combination with the application of steam, and/or vacuum. The application of centrifugal spinning combined with the other techniques indicated herein may speed the degassing of the ground coffee beans.
The vacuum-capable chamber 140 may be equipped with a blower in order to introduce the movement of air over the ground coffee. The blowing of air over the ground coffee may trigger additional degassing, which may speed up the degassing process when used in combination or sequence with one or more of the application of steam, vacuum, and/or centrifugal spinning
The vacuum-capable chamber 140 may be implemented as to withstand positive internal pressure, and be equipped with an air pressurizer to generate positive pressure within the vacuum-capable chamber. Application of positive-pressure to the ground coffee may aid degassing in combination and/or sequence with one or more of the application of steam, vacuum, centrifugal spinning and positive pressure. It is understood any combination or sub-combination of these processes may be utilized, and any sequence of the combination or sub-combination may be utilized in order to achieve the desired result.
Referring against to
Referring back to
The control unit may include a microprocessor or any suitable type of processing circuitry, such as one or more general-purpose processors (e.g., ARM-based processors), a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), a Programmable Logic Device (PLD), an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a Graphical Processing Unit (GPU), a video card controller, etc.
In certain embodiments, the roaster 110 can both roast the green coffee beans and cool the roasted coffee beans. In the foregoing case, the cooler 135 can be omitted, and the roasted coffee beans can enter the grinder 130 directly from the exit chute.
At 420, the roasted coffee beans are cooled. The roasted coffee beans can be cooled by either cooler (not depicted) at a location lateral to the roaster 110, a cooler 135 directly below the roaster 110, or in the roaster itself 110. If the roasted coffee beans are roasted in the cooler 135 or roaster 110, fan 114 blows air to cool the roasted beans. If the roasted coffee beans are cooled in the roaster 110, the heating elements 115 are turned off, and the fan 114 blows ambient temperature air through the bottom opening or mesh of the cup 113.
At 425, the grinder 130 grinds the roasted coffee beans, resulting in coffee grounds. The hollow 151 receives the coffee grounds by opening the top retractable opening 153 and closing.
At 430, the vacuum pump 152 vacuums the air from the hollow 151 for predetermined time such as 30 sec.-1 minute. Alternatively, the air pressure can be varied by increasing and decreasing the vacuum at a constant or variable level. Prior to vacuuming or during vacuuming, a steam can be applied to the ground coffee to promote oxidation. After the vacuum pump 152 vacuums the air, the bottom retractable opening 154 opens causing the coffee grounds to drop into the filter 160. As noted above, the vacuum chamber may also be equipped with a centrifuge, blower and/or air pressurizer, in order to apply one or more of centrifugal spinning, moving air or positive air pressure to the ground coffee, in tandem or in sequence with the application of negative-pressure vacuum. It is understood that any combination, and sub-combination may be utilized, in any desired sequence or cotemporaneous applications.
At 440, nozzle 165 sprays water or steam onto the coffee grounds causing the coffee grounds to bloom. After a predetermined period of time (445), such as 30 seconds, at 450 the pipe 175 pours water or steam onto the coffee grounds and filters coffee or expresso. The water or vaporized steam mixes with the coffee grounds resulting in coffee or espresso. The filter 160 retrains the coffee grounds and permits the coffee or espresso to drop into the pot 180.
The above-described embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented in hardware, firmware or via the execution of software or computer code that can be stored in a recording medium such as a CD ROM, a Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), a magnetic tape, a RAM, a floppy disk, a hard disk, or a magneto-optical disk or computer code downloaded over a network originally stored on a remote recording medium or a non-transitory machine readable medium and to be stored on a local recording medium, so that the methods described herein can be rendered via such software that is stored on the recording medium using a general purpose computer, or a special processor or in programmable or dedicated hardware, such as an ASIC or FPGA.
As would be understood in the art, the computer, the processor, microprocessor controller or the programmable hardware include memory components, e.g., RAM, ROM, Flash, etc. that may store or receive software or computer code that when accessed and executed by the computer, processor or hardware implement the processing methods described herein.
While the invention has been shown and described with reference to certain exemplary embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62743160 | Oct 2018 | US |
