Gosh, what a radically important invention!

\"Heat-absorbing ceramic mugs offer the poorest performance\" says it all, really. Drinking your hot drinks form a ceramic (bone china, please!) cup or mug performs more or less the same function as these beans: the cold cup absorbs the heat from the drink and when the drink is cooler than the cup, the cup returns some heat to the drink. Or you could just drink it when it gets cool enough. Or throw it away and make another, fresh, better tasting cup.

Y\'know, I would like to believe that supposedly intelligent people would encourage creativity.
To all you snide little critics: what have you invented? what project have you ever seen all the way through to market?
I hope someday to see these guys bring forth a more complex relevant creation and say, \"Well,we couldn\'t get funding for our real dream because people were too close-minded. So,we made something that the average person could buy as a knick-knack gift and then- well,everything really took off from there!\"
Sometimes, a seemingly stupid goofy toy idea is more profitable and a quicker route to financial freedom than a complex,revolutionary dream to help change the world for the better.
Big or small, good or bad, new ideas will always attract critics who will never create anything.
It\'s always easier to play the critic... than to perform onstage.

theradarsweep,
I think it\'s bad wording on Coxworth\'s part that\'s confusing you. The ceramic mugs don\'t absorb and store heat. They rather rapidly conduct it to the outside. Haven\'t you noticed how warm a mug full of hot liquid gets? That\'s heat it\'s losing to the atmosphere, not capturing for later release.
That said, I\'m not impressed by this concept. I\'m guessing they use some kind of eutectic salt for the phase-change material. I\'m more in favor of the \"start at perfect temperature, put in vacuum-insulated mug with lid to keep it there\" technique.

It could be messy retrieving these if they are meant to be reused. Maybe some type of cord or stem to lift them out of the cup when you\'re done? Interesting new use of materials though.

A big fat metal spoon will do the same thing.

The key here is the phase change; by melting, the liquid absorbs far, far more heat energy, per unit mass than it would if it didn\'t. Which is stored as latent heat in the liquid and released as the liquid forms back into a solid.
Look at the specific heat capacity of metals which averages at about 0.5 KJ/Kg, versus the enthalpy of formation of those same metals which averages at 240 Kj/Kg
Also, I doubt retrieval will be too difficult, if you finish your coffee.

These beans could be placed in a little bags (like tea bags) that could be easily be removed, rinsed and sterilized in hot water and ready for use the next day. Our culture easily could get their heads around coffee bags to keep your coffee hot. Nice idea.

This would be a great promotional item for coffee distributors. I can\'t see it being a viable product on the consumer market, but it would be something pretty prestigous to receive a bag of those from a catering tradeshow, possibly with each bean branded with a company name and logo.

Phase change.. to difficult.. i can try.. 60 degrees? .. waith.. can it be... candle wax?