The Flavia Coffee Machine

Shopping for an office coffee machine was more difficult than I expected but I eventually found one that fit all our needs, cheap to run, lots of drinks, cool design and easy to maintain and use. It's called the Flavia Fusion drink machine.

The first thing I love about Flavia Drink Machines is the fact that you can enjoy as many cups as you want without having the trouble of going somewhere just to buy tea or coffee. It's convenience at the end of the day and having a machine that can provide a fresh cup of tea, coffee or hot chocolate at the touch of a button when you want.

For the office coffee machine, the Flavia Fusion drinks machine is the perfect choice when there is less that 20 people like in our office. It has a very sleek, curvy, sexy design that looks really cool in our office. Everyone has there different tastes, some like coffee whilst others prefer tea which is why this machine is perfect as it can deliver all these and more! Using Flavia Fusion unique flavour Filtepacks, it brews directly from pack to cup. What's so great about this is that there is no mess, no clean up, and no tainting from the previous brew. Some drink machines get this wrong and a cup of coffee followed by a cup of tea will have the remnents of a coffee flavour to it. Tea and coffee do not taste great together!

If you make a French Roast for yourself and then an Espresso for your work colleague, their Espresso will not have a taste of French Roast, which is exactly why the Flavia Fusion drink machine works so well! I also love the fact that it comes in red, black and blue so you can choice one that will fit your office or home.

For the office environment for those of 20 people or more then the Flavia Coffee Machines S350 or SB100 are the ones to choose from. For years, other office coffee services have provided supplies to create coffee for the masses.

An office coffee machine needs to provide coffee to live up to the standard but with the Flavia coffee machine, it does more that just living up to the standard. As their marketing says 'more than just a coffee machine'

It has raised the standard to an almost unreachable height with fresh ground coffee created from easy to use office coffee supplies and equipment. Thanks to the Flavia coffee machine, the new standard for office coffee machine services matches that of the gourmet coffee shop.

All the Flavia Coffee Drink Machines provide you with the same feature, the one that keeps your every cup of coffee always fresh, delicious, and new coffee without the taste from previous brewing.

They are easy to use and clean, brews direct from pack to cup, portable, and presentable. You can even place them anywhere, whether at your home or in the office. So, don’t just settle for anything less. Choose the Flavia coffee machine and find out for yourself the revolution in office coffee supplies. If you already own a Flavia coffee machine, their coffees might interest you as well.

Flavia offers different variety of coffees for you to choose from like:

• French Roast
• Italian Roast
• Espresso Roast
• Sidamo Gold
• House Blend
• Breakfast Blend
• Costa Rica
• Colombia Sumatra
• Hazelnut
• French Vanilla
• Irish Crème
• French Roast Decaf
• House Blend Decaf
• Hazelnut Decaf, and more.

For more information with regards to their other services and products, visit http://www.myflavia.com

With your Flavia coffee machine and various coffee flavours, every cup of your coffee gives you different fantastic coffee experience without having any taste from other flavours at all.

Pictures of Coffee Bean to Coffee Cup

From Coffee Bean to Coffee Cup in pictures. Lovely photos illustrating the process and hard work that goes into making coffee.

Not sure about the coffee machine process but i'm sure I can research into this and do a post in the near future.

Vending Machine Coke Cola Robots

Cool vending machine robots meet Coca Cola. These Coca Cola vending robots are so cool.

Currently these cool vending machines only offer regular Coke and Coke Zero but I can see many more flavours added to these robot’s menu. What next from the crazy world of vending machines!

Fruit Vending Machines

To tackle obesity, fruit vending machines in schools could prove a step in the right direction. Primary school boys love apples. Secondary school girls like strawberries and grapes. Nobody's fussed about pears. Cherry tomatoes are OK and so are mandarins. These are the cold (preferred storage temperature 3 degrees), hard (or crisp if we're talking apples) facts about fruit, according to the students of Greenvale's Aitken College. At least according to Jonathan Sampson, who in February installed the college's first fruit vending machines.

It was a trial of sorts for Mr Sampson and the company, Schools Go Fresh, a joint venture between RP Vending Machines and a consortium of Yarra Valley fruit growers, for which he is operations manager. Fruit vending machines, while popular overseas, are rare in Australia.

For the first few months Mr Sampson stocked the machines himself, asking the school's Breakfast Club members what they liked and didn't like, and what their classmates were saying.

He knew he was dealing with tough customers. But he also knew he had a good product, and with the current push to address the increasing problem of childhood obesity, the timing was perfect.

First came the machine's novelty appeal. Swanky, Italian-designed machines that operate according to a cashless system of "swipe tags", they feature a revolving drum that allows fussy eaters to turn the fruit until they see precisely which apple, bag of grapes (but most likely not a pear), they'd like to eat.

The tech-savvy purchasing "tags" function a bit like CityLink passes, allowing parents to select the fruit they want their child to eat via an online account, set a daily spending limit and view their child's transaction history.

Then came the fruit, which, supplied directly from the growers, stored at a crisp 3 degrees, and with only a brief warehouse stop between farm and school, was far fresher than the produce many students were used to. The school still has some "junk" food available, but now there's a healthier alternative.

For Mr Sampson, the trick to getting children to eat fruit is to make it look good.

"It has to be packaged or sold in the right way. What we've tried to do is imitate what a chocolate bar would look like with clever packaging, but it's fruit."

Still, it's not just looks that count. "The school canteen (at Aitken) had a bowl of fruit for the kids to choose from, but it was kept at room temperature and the fruit wasn't as fresh. Kids aren't stupid. They like fruit to be cold, and they can see when an apple has been manhandled by 10 other children before them."

Ian Crocker, assistant principal of St Albans Secondary College, came across Schools Go Fresh in an educational journal and thought "it sounded like a fantastic concept". So he took it to the school council, gained approval for a trial, sent letters out to raise awareness of the program and began working on a school campaign to highlight the benefits of fruit to students.

Another important element of the project, for Mr Crocker, is leading by example. "Twenty-five staff have already signed up to start the ball rolling. A lot of it is role modelling."

The college's first machine was installed last Thursday. When it's stocked tomorrow, Mr Crocker plans to be one of the first people to swipe a tag, get a piece of fruit and tell people how good it is.

Doug Mahoney, principal of Aitken College, says the vending machines have had a better reception from students than he anticipated. While he partly attributes this to the quality of the fruit, he says the "cool gadget" appeal of the tag purchase system holds definite appeal. The vending machines have also led to some curious playground incidents, particularly when a teacher came across a preppie being dangled over a rubbish bin by the ankles by an older student.

Bullying? Well, no. The preppie had accidentally dropped his fruit tag in the bin. "But he was a resourceful little kid because he went and got a big kid and together they retrieved the tag," Mr Mahoney laughs.

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Art Vending Machine

Here is an art vending machine, discovered in London. The Campbell Works art gallery in Stoke Newington, North London is currently hosting an exhibition by Jake and Dinos Chapman. This vending machine is located outside the gallery and for £2 you can get yourself a piece of local art!

£2 will get you a random print by a local artist. Fantastic Value, well worth £2.

It just makes you wonder what else you could sell via a vending machine! We typically see the Klix type vending machine in offices and leisure centres but increasingly there are a variety of ipod, shoes, food machines out in society. Check out the rest of this blog to find more fun vending machines.

Most Expensive Cup of Coffee

Where in the world is the most expensive cup of coffee? The answer is Moscow. To find out why along with the most expensive cup of coffee costing £50, please read on.

All around the world, the price of a morning cup of coffee is up. In some places it's way up. Mercer's, the US consulting firm recently charged their London office with the task of taking a survey of the price of a cup of coffee worldwide.

They discovered that Moscow has the most expensive coffee, with the average price of a cup hovering around $10.19.

Lenin must be rolling over in his grave! Just 17 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the one-time capital of communism is now home to the world's most expensive cup of coffee.

The rest of Europe isn't much kinder — coffee is $6.77 in Paris and $6.62 in Athens. International travelers looking to satisfy their caffeine cravings should look to South America and Africa for relief: At $2.03 per cup in Buenos Aires and $2.36 in Johannesburg, both continents offer relief to cash-strapped java seekers. New York is far from the most expensive, weighing in at a mere $3.75.

"The cost of living survey is conducted in stores of international standard, frequented by expatriates," says Nathalie Constantin Métral, a research manager at Mercer's office in Geneva, Switzerland. "We collected the price for a cup of coffee in bars and cafés of international standard frequented by expatriates in Moscow, and those places are very expensive."

Award for 'Most Expensive Cup of Coffee' at £50
But if Moscow if the most expensive place to get a cuppa, then the award for most expensive cup of coffee goes to De'Longhi's Caffe Raro pictured here.

A cup of this coffee went on sale in April 2008 in London for £50. The extra special brew is a blend of Jamaican Blue Mountain and the exclusive Kopi Luwak bean, which is collected from cat droppings.

De'Longhi's Caffe Raro was created by David Cooper, an international barista judge.
Customers could choose from the usual range of coffees, including espresso, which also sells for £50 a shot. All proceeds were donated to Macmillan Cancer Support.

Mr Cooper said: "These rare coffees have been slowly hand roasted for around 12 minutes to ensure that we maximise the potential of each coffee. "The final roast colour is quite dark to ensure that the espresso is perfect for a smooth latte or cappuccino."

Kopi Luwak, or Civet coffee, is made from beans eaten, partly digested,
and then expelled by the Indonesian civet cat.

Civets, who live in the foliage of plantations across south east Asia, are said to pick the best and ripest coffee berries.

Enzymes in their digestive system break down the flesh of the fruit before the animals expel the bean. Workers collect beans from the plantation floor, wash away the dung and roast them.

Supermarket Vending Machines

Imagine a supermarket inside a vending machine. Imagine no longer! These new kind of vending machines called self supermarkets mean you can get what you want, when you want!

I wonder if any vending machine manufacturers such as Klix Vending Machines will follow suit? Only time will tell but I think these would work well in the UK, especially in inner city locations that do not have 24 hour convenience stores such as Tesco Express.

Amy Winehouse Slush Puppy Machine

Amy Winehouse is often pictured with an ice pop in her hand and has shared her own supplies with fans.

Now songstress Amy Winehouse has made sure she can enjoy cool treats on tap after having a Slush Puppy machine installed in her home.

With "Winehouse Chill-Out" printed on the box, Amy's new purchase was delivered to her Camden address.

Trail of Cheetos leads police to catch vending machine thieves

An orange trail of Cheetos led St. Paul police to three teenagers suspected of burglarizing a vending machine.

Officers were called to the Arlington Recreation Center, where they found a vending machine's glass had been broken with a chair. Most of the candy and chips were missing, according to a criminal complaint. The officers followed a trail of snack debris from the rec center, around the side of the building and to a nearby home. Inside, they found numerous vending-sized bags of Cheetos and other snacks.

Police arrested three males ages 17, 18 and 19 who soon arrived at the home. The two adults are charged with third-degree burglary, the 17-year-old with criminal damage to property.

All three denied being involved, the complaint says.

Brunopasso Expresso Coffee Machine

Japanese designer Tadahito Ishibashi has come up with an espresso machine which he has named as “Brunopasso”.
He has called the same as design for style because the design is truly majestic and can be termed as a masterpiece. It looks in every bit more like the Italian Sports Cars complete with console panel. While looking stylish it is also very simple to use and even works with pods.

These gadgets are very much available commonly at the supermarkets. So just go ahead and make a style statement by having an espresso machine right on your table.

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Blockbuster NCR DVD Vending Machines

Blockbuster Video is intent on competing on all fronts when it comes to DVD rentals. When it perceived Netflix and its online model to be a threat, Blockbuster launched its own online rental service. Redbox kiosks are the next target for Blockbuster with a recent announcement that Blockbuster and NCR will be launching DVD vending kiosks.

The kiosks will be launched in small numbers in a pilot program before possibly being rolled out nationwide. Blockbuster says that 50 kiosks will be launched in Q3 2008. At first Blockbuster says that the kiosks will be used for rentals, but could be upgraded in the future for game sales, digital downloads and movie sales. The locations and markets for the first 50 units has not been announced at this time.

"With NCR's advanced technology, these machines will dispense a wide array of DVDs and could offer digital downloading in the future, all under the Blockbuster brand," said Jim Keyes, Blockbuster chairman and CEO. "This initial rollout provides consumers increasingly convenient access to their favorite movies and is one more step in the fulfillment of our mission to transform Blockbuster into a multi-channel provider of media entertainment."

This is another step in the right direction for Blockbuster coupled with the predicted success of their movie downloads