Beverage brewers such as coffee and tea brewers are commonly used in homes and offices for preparing hot beverages. Some brewers conveniently prepare hot beverages by accepting coffee/tea pre-packed in a pod. A user can dispose of the used coffee/tea pod in one single motion without the customary need for cleaning required with conventional automatic drip coffeemakers or espresso makers or tea makers.
The current single-serve, pod-type brewers available on the market have some limitations in that they impose on the user/customer the need to use two different interchangeable pod holders in order to brew one cup or two cups of coffee. Moreover, many one-cup brewer designs have a reservoir or a holding tank which is not fully emptied during each brewing cycle. This can be inconvenient when the amount of water that is left in the reservoir does not meet the desired amount of hot beverage that the user wants when they start the brewer for the next cup of beverage. Some current designs have preset volumes for brewing each cup. This is accomplished by the use of a flow meter which controls the amount of hot water pumped from the brewer. This is a costly and complex approach to metered brewing.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds