Human Factors

New Zealand is a real coffee country. Not that we actually grow coffee beans, but when it comes to preparation, our barista are the best in the world. After drinking a coffee in one of the cafés in Wellington you’ll find it hard to drink your Cappucino, Latte or Macchiato elsewhere in the world. But apperantly it was not good enough for New Zealand to have first class coffee makers in the country, they wanted to revolutionise the coffee preparation. Which led to the existance of one of the most unnecessary products on earth: the Riccocino. The Riccochino is a FROZEN coffee you’ll get at the gas station and prepare yourself by putting it into a special microwave oven. Depending on how many coffees you’d like to prepare at the same time you choose a button, in case you want two Riccocinos (hopefully because you have vouchers for two free cups) it takes 3.15 minutes. Then you open the lid of the cup and find out that there is still some kind of ice cube in the middle of your cup. You put it back into the microwave, press the “Boost” butten, just to realise after 10 more seconds that your Riccocino ist still not hot. Three more attempts and some fire sparks in the microwave later your coffee is hot, but it doesn’t taste good, in facts it’s pretty disgusting. Very sweet, so that the first sip feels like a chocolate treat, but I felt sick after drinking about one third of the cup. Thanks that it was for free… Conclusion: time-consuming, circuitous, probably unhealthy (due to the microwaving and additional ingrediences that don’t belong to coffee) and not tasty at all. I guess, this one won’t stay on the market for long…