Method for delivering hot and cold beverages on demand in a variety of flavorings and nutritional additives

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for delivering a flavored and/or nutritionally enhanced non-carbonated beverage on premise. The method comprises a step of providing at least one packaged source of a liquid premix base comprising at least one microbiologically, physically, enzymatically and/or chemically sensitive beverage component which is not solely carbohydrate, a water activity lowering component. The liquid premix based is formulated with a water activity and/or solid content effective to render it shelf stable at room temperature. The method comprises a step of separately providing a plurality of flowable additive packaged sources adapted to tailor the flavor, aroma, body and/or nutritional value of the beverage. The method comprises a step in which liquid premix base is mixed to hot or cold non-carbonated water to provide a beverage base which is dispensed to the cup and wherein at least one additive is delivered and mixed with the beverage base into the cup.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present intention is directed to a method for delivering flavored or nutritionally enhanced hot and cold beverages like coffee specialties and juice beverages. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method in which a variety of different hot and cold non-carbonated beverages can be produced and delivered at a dispensing location which have different flavored and / or nutritional characteristics. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Beverage dispensers are known devices to prepare a beverage from one or more beverage sources. In some types of beverage dispensers, beverage sources that include concentrates and / or powders are mixed with a liquid (e.g., water) to prepare the beverage. Some types of dispensers dispense relatively cold beverages (e.g., soft drinks), while other types of dispensers dispense relatively hot beverages (e.g., coffees, teas, and hot chocolates). [0003] However, there is a high commercial potential for providing on pr...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0025] The invention thus provides an improved method of dispensing a beverage that can be easily tailored by the user and which has components that are easily stored and selected.

Problems solved by technology

In particular, operators are under increasing pressure from media, government and consumers to serve healthier alternatives to carbonated soft drinks.

Consumers also expect “coffee-house” quality, range and style in their coffees, and the demand remains very poor except in places where coffee can be brewed on spot.

Offering brewed coffees also necessitates complicated logistics to supply to the foodservice location coffee beans, grinders and brewing devices.

If the brewed coffees further need to be tailored to meet the consumers' demand in different flavors or nutritional values, the logistics become even more complex and time and labor consuming.

In addition, there is a contradiction in that stores such as quick-serve restaurants, convenience stores, coffee shops, donut stores, leisure places, etc., have limited counter space, while these stores look for multi-function systems to be able to meet the demand of a wider, more eclectic and often multi-national population of consumers.

Traditional hot beverage dispensers, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,419,120 are not adapted to fulfill these needs.

When flavors are added, they can bind to remaining solids, producing flavor concentrations and unevenness when concentration of solids is high.

When producing cold beverages, powder is especially hard to dissolve sufficiently to avoid the presence of a large solid concentration.

These dispensers require a large storage space for the powder with typically tall and large canisters.

Other problems are that the characteristics of the powdered components are more susceptible to change due to the environmental conditions (humidity, temperature, .

. . ) and are susceptible to transport damages with a change of the particle size due to compaction, which may consequently affect the solubility.

This method deals with the problem of degradation and instability of the aroma when premixed with a product concentrate.

However, it is not adapted to deliver different flavors to a same concentrate in order to provide a wide choice of flavored or nutritionally enhanced beverages.

In particular, mixing the flavor with the concentrate causes a problem of taste contamination, which deters other flavors from mixing with the same concentrate.

Images