For those of us who appreciate hot rice wine, but find the inevitable cooling cycle annoying, someone should manufacture a self heating cup. The concept could be extended to include cognac glasses.
Physics and engineering rear their ugly heads here - If you go with a nine volt battery, the power would quickly be exhausted.
If you go with a fuel / wick combination, temperature regulation is a challenge.
I'd love to learn that this one is baked already, but all I've been able to locate is traditional pour-thru heaters for flask-size quantities.
Perhaps nuclear powered cups would be a long term solution, but I'm not sure how much shielding would be required to protect my face.
Solar powered? I do most of my sake drinking on winter nights...-- normzone, Oct 23 2003 I keep reading this as Heat Seeking Sake Cup.
If you can make a larger version for mulled wine I'll give you a plus.
Maybe an insulated cup shaped like a cone. Tea mugs whose necks are narrower than the base or that are pinched in below the rim and then curve out again keep tea hotter for longer than straight sided mugs.
It wouldn't work indefinately of course but then sake is only drunk in small cups.-- squeak, Oct 24 2003 squeak, I like the idea of heat-seeking sake cups....it would actually solve the problem....Of course, the added drawback of hanging on to your drink arises, but there is potential here..-- normzone, Oct 24 2003 This could be accomplished using the same principle as portable butane hair appliances.
Rather than have the cup itself heat up, some type of stylish, thermally conductive, cup "cozy" could be designed to house the heating element. Your cup will be continuously reheated whenever you aren't sipping.
I picture something akin to a hard-boiled egg stand.
Wonderful idea, normzone.-- Tiger Lily, Oct 24 2003 [portable butane hair appliances}
This conjures up frightening images - I'm picturing wigs and trips to the burn ward - tell me it's all a bad dream.
Your egg cup is a good design - but I need to talk the sushi bar into running an extension cord across the bar. When I win the lottery and open my sushi bar / photo gallery, this will be built into the bar.-- normzone, Nov 25 2003 why not put a pellet of iron in the bottom of your sake cup. Then in the sushi bar's table top have small areas that have beneath them an induction heating element. I guess to really tech this out the cup could have a thermostatically controlled radio signal that tells the induction coils to stop when ideal temp is reached.
Or you could just drink faster.-- DadManWalking, Dec 27 2003 I think increasing the thermal mass of the cup is your best option, short of building something into the bar. Build a steel base into the base of the cup or glass with significant mass (though not so much as to keep the customer from lifting their drink), and thermally insulate all surfaces that don't touch the cup. Store them at a temperature a few degrees above the temperature you'd prefer for your sake or cognac.
Instead of waiting for your local bar to implement this, bring a brick with you that's been coated on 5 sides with spray-foam insulation and has been sitting by your stove all day. Place your cup on it while you aren't drinking. Actually, that sounds more elegant than the heavy cup method.-- Worldgineer, Dec 29 2005 The correct temperature for drinking sake or shoju is just at or above body temperature. That's why the cup is so small. You put it in her navel to keep it warm.-- humanbean, Dec 30 2005 I tried that, but she keeps drinking it.-- normzone, Dec 30 2005 Thank you [a1], only took this long for the tech to be off the shelf.-- normzone, Jul 07 2021 I kept seeing it as a self-heating snake cup, for which the intended function is completely obvious...-- RayfordSteele, Jul 07 2021 Alternatively, something you might find in the bodily protection undergarment section of a sporting goods store in a northern climate.-- RayfordSteele, Jul 07 2021 I have seen USB powered coffee cup heaters recently ...-- normzone, Nov 26 2023 Yes - think it exists now..... you can live on the royalties.-- xenzag, Nov 26 2023 random, halfbakery