US 6,740,345 · Granted 2004-05-25

The Pod That Brews Lattes and Cappuccinos at Home

Imagine a cartridge filled with coffee grounds or flavor powder that you snap into a machine—hot water gets forced through it under pressure, and out comes your finished drink straight into your cup. The genius part is the clever handle design that makes the whole thing easy to grip and snap in without breaking, plus a special nozzle that creates that fancy foamy head you'd get at a café.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a cartridge system with an inlet that connects to a pressurized mounting head, a chamber holding flavor or particle materials, and an outlet that can create a high-speed jet. What's protected here is the specific geometry of the inlet being noticeably smaller than the chamber itself—which reduces the force on the seal—and the handle design that forms part of the chamber wall while staying rigid enough to grip and insert. The restrictive outlet opening that creates foam is also covered.

Why it matters

This patent describes the core mechanics of single-serve beverage cartridges, the kind that let people brew specialty drinks at home without expensive espresso machines or tedious cleanup. By shrinking the inlet relative to the chamber, the inventor reduced seal failure—a major headache in early pod systems. The foaming nozzle adds the café-quality touch that makes home brewing appealing. Filed in 2000 and granted in 2004, this captures the engineering thinking that made convenient coffee pods viable.

Real-world use

Every time someone pops a coffee or tea pod into a capsule brewer and presses a button to get a perfect cup in seconds, they're benefiting from this cartridge design and its pressure-balanced inlet seal.

Original USPTO abstract

A cartridge for use with a mounting head for the preparation of fluid comestibles comprising a cartridge inlet, a chamber connected to said cartridge inlet for containing suitable flavor-containing or particle materials, a cartridge outlet connected to said chamber and a handle enabling a user to hold the handle to attach and secure the cartridge inlet to the mounting head to allow the liquid to be delivered under pressure through the flavor-containing or particle materials in the chamber, through the cartridge outlet and directly into a receptacle such as a cup or carafe for consumption, thereby dramatically simplifying the preparation of the fluid comestibles and relieving the user from the tedious cleaning work. The handle comprising at least part of the wall of the chamber, which is sufficiently rigid. The cartridge inlet has a cross-section area significantly smaller than that for the chamber to reduce the force exerted by the liquid pressure to the cartridge inlet, thereby lowering the risk of breaking the seal between the cartridge inlet and mounting head. The cartridge outlet may have a restrictive opening such as an orifice for forming a high-speed fluid jet or stream and an arrangement to allow it to interact with air to generate a foamy head for the fluid comestible. A freshness promoter can be used to prolong the freshness of the flavor-containing materials.

Patent details

Publication number: US 6,740,345
Filing date: 2000-12-22
Grant date: 2004-05-25
Assignee: Edward Zhihua Cai
Inventor(s): CAI EDWARD ZHIHUA
CPC class: A47J31/14

View original record on Google Patents →

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