How Hot is My Coffee?

There are people in this world who travel from restaurant to restaurant measuring the temperature of coffee. Too hot and it burns, affecting flavor and safety. Too cold and it disappoints and can turn "bad" more quickly.

Rather than employing a coffee temperature consultant, fast food restaurant and coffee shop owners/managers should consider a more simple solution: coffee cups with temperature gages.


Much like hypercolor t-shirts or mood rings, coffee cup sensors would display red, yellow, green, or blue to indicate "too hot," "hot," "warm" and "cool" on a simple strip facing outwards and a temperature sensor inside.

To reduce or eliminate marginal costs from this, consider allowing marketers to provide temperature-sensitive to-go cups with advertising on them.

This idea is credited to a friend who shall remain anonymous until he claims it, and was inspired by a trip to Dottie's Cafe last summer in San Francisco.