System and method for brewing and dispensing coffee using customer profiling

Abstract

A system and method for brewing and dispensing beverages may use customer profiling to select beverages to be produced and presented to a given customer and / or messages to be displayed to the customer, based on customer-specific information stored on a loyalty card, in a local system, or remotely. A user interface mechanism may receive input identifying the given customer. A controller may select a base drink recipe dependent on the customer's identity, and may initiate production of a beverage using the selected drink recipe. Each drink recipe may specify an amount of water, coffee, flavorings, dairy, and / or other ingredients, and may be further customizable to add or remove ingredients and / or to change an amount thereof, based on received user input. The stored customer-specific information may include a customer identifier, account information, a purchase history, a message history, drink recipes, and / or an email address for each of a plurality of customers.

Description

BACKGROUND[0001]Field of the Disclosure[0002]This disclosure relates generally to systems and methods for brewing and dispensing coffee, and more particularly to systems and methods for making, filtering, brewing, processing, and dispensing beverages using customer profiling.[0003]Description of the Related Art[0004]Most coffee consumed outside of the home requires either experienced baristas, or expensive automated espresso machines. Both require significant capital to equip the retail setting, as well as logistical challenges with hiring and training personnel. The resulting retail locations require ongoing operating costs that dominate the costs associated with delivering high quality coffee. Alternatively, vending machines remove much of the cost and management difficulties, but the coffee quality suffers.SUMMARY[0005]A system and method for brewing and dispensing coffee and / or other beverages may use customer profiling to select beverages to be produced and presented to the cus...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Most coffee consumed outside of the home requires either experienced baristas, or expensive automated espresso machines.

Both require significant capital to equip the retail setting, as well as logistical challenges with hiring and training personnel.

The resulting retail locations require ongoing operating costs that dominate the costs associated with delivering high quality coffee.

Alternatively, vending machines remove much of the cost and management difficulties, but the coffee quality suffers.

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