Upon the floor of my office there is a large brown stain which remains stubborn in the face of mopping. Over time, it has progressively darkened the tiles on the floor in what is probably a permanent fashion.
The cause of this discolouration is simply spills from a freshly brewed carafe of coffee. Being involved with programming, we always fill the coffee machine to the absolute maximum and overload it with ground coffee; which means it is impossible to pour the first cup without spillage.
The solution is the coffee syringe. A large syringe which allows coffee to be withdrawn from the carafe, one cup at a time, until such time as the residual coffee level permits spill-free pouring.
I imagine a volume of about 100ml would work reasonably well for most purposes. An adjustable spraying nozzle would be fun but is unnecessary at this stage.
<addition> The syringe should not look like a typical syringe, in fact it could be coffee-themed itself. To avoid staining being seen, it should have solid walls, in an appropriate almost-black brown. There could be two handles styled as cup-handles, in the place where traditional reusable syringes had the two little steel rings.-- vincevincevince, Nov 10 2007 turkey baster http://www.learning...1_turkey_baster.jpgi normally don't link, but it's crucial that VVV becomes aqauinted. VVV, turkery baster. Turkey baster, VVV. [daseva, Nov 14 2007] 100ml syringes are baked. This is almost as bad as your idea to force people to use the past tense in blogs... Hahah.. glad I remembered that here, keeps it alive. Kinda.
Anyways, you have a knack for spotting problems and offering solutions, but as with the other idea, your solutions may be too mundane. Live a little. Set the box on fire. Make a coffee pot with telescoping sides or something.-- daseva, Nov 10 2007 I take it all back. Syringe architecture is a viable alternative to all forms of decanting. [+]
Might I suggest including a syringe pump for ease of administration.-- daseva, Nov 10 2007 //syringe pump// is a good idea, but would add significantly to the unit cost. To be sold with high-end coffee machines however it would be a must-have. Lower-end machines could make do with the manually operated syringe....-- vincevincevince, Nov 10 2007 Turkey baster.-- normzone, Nov 10 2007 Not familiar with the turkey baster-- vincevincevince, Nov 14 2007 A group of programmers that are unable to learn from past mistakes and continue overfilling a coffeepot. Microsoft?-- Noexit, Nov 14 2007 Almost as useful as the infamous caffeine patch. (+)-- croissantz, Nov 14 2007 I can envision a coffee pot with a syringe like spout. On filling, an occlussive lid can be placed on top. This lid has some space under it so placement of the lid itself does not cause spillage. With lid in place, no coffee will come out. The lid has a plunger which can be pressed, forcing coffee out of the pot.
Consider also the humble siphon. With this, the pot can remain in place. All one must do is lower the siphon tube to fill the cup, then lift it back above the lievel of the coffee in the pot and clip it into place. This is a retrofit you could test yourself at work, V^3. You could use aquarium tubing or surgical rubber - the latter compresses better with a ring clamp.
Might I add that I was so pleased that this was not some halfwit suggestion of intravenous coffee.-- bungston, Nov 14 2007 random, halfbakery