Smarter solutions for a better coffee making experience (Part 1)

In one of my posts, about a month ago - I complained about the fact that my new Nespresso coffee machine was not able to assist me in performing simple coffee making tasks. The manual - of which the author probably has heard of minimalism but never actually read Carroll's books - didn't help much. These are the primary tasks of the machine:
  • Preparing for first use
  • Adjusting the water level
  • Preparing coffee
  • Emptying the system
  • Resetting to factory defaults
  • Setting the energy saving mode
  • Descaling the machine
  • Cleaning the machine
  • Troubleshooting
As exciting as all these tasks may be, there is only one that is really influenced by the context: Preparing coffee. Let's zoom in on this task and see how we can optimize our coffee making experience.

The variables of a cup of coffee

Assuming we use the Nespresso machine to prepare a cup of coffee, we can identify the following variables:
  1. Brewing ratio: ristretto, espresso or lungo
  2. Additions: sugar / sweets, coffee milk / coffee milk powder, steamed / frothed milk
  3. Flavor
  4. Intensity
Other important aspects like temperature and pressure are left out of this list, because they can not be influenced with a setting of the machine. Or there must be some magic double tap button control that I have missed in the manual. As I am not a coffee connoisseur or Barista, it is possible that I have missed some aspects here, so please feel free to add them in the comments.

Predicting your next cup of coffee

So now that we know what the typical aspects are that define the character of our cup of coffee, we can focus on the next step: predicting the characteristics for each of these aspects based on the personal preferences and context of the coffee drinker. In my next blog I will dive deeper into this topic. Any suggestion which context variables I should take into account?


Note: This blog not intends to criticize Krups or Nestle products. I use these products (which I actually like) merely as an everyday example to illustrate how contextual intelligence can help enterprises create smarter devices that will lead to an even better brand experience.

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