The FoamAroma

Craig Bailey has invented a new kind of coffee-cup lid that “will make your day,” reports Holly Finn in The Wall Street Journal (2/9/13). The FoamAroma lid features a triangular — not circular — opening through which to sip, “placed on a slant, with a slight indentation just below, fitting the lower lip. A second opening, a pencil’s diameter in the middle of the top, aerates and slightly cools the drink.” The design eliminates “all the infantilizing effects” of traditional lids — “no sucking, no dribbling. Plus, because of the central opening, there is real coffee aroma.”

Jay Sorensen, inventor of the Java Jacket insulating cup sleeve, was Craig’s inspiration. The two had met when Craig was a project manager at a paper mill, and when Craig lost his job, Jay advised him, “Just do the next thing.” So, Craig set to work in his kitchen, “using clear plastic prototypes and colored water to test liquid movement in the cup and spillage patterns.” He arrived at the triangular opening and slant as a way to “coax the coffee” and “added the middle aerating hole to create fluid dynamics, ensuring calm waves of liquid throughout, rather than aggressive rushes up and over the sides.”

The now-patented lids are also made of a different, more flexible type of material instead of the usual polystyrene, which react with warm milk, “making them brittle and loosening the seal over the cup’s rim.” Craig’s lids are also re-usable. They are manufactured in Florida, cost about a penny each, and Craig sold about four million of them last year. Craig says his insight was the simple perspective of the on-the-go coffee-drinker. “Most baristas and coffee-shop owners don’t drink from paper cups,” he notes. “They don’t experience what customers do,” and don’t understand. “A lid is not just a lid,” he says. The FoamAroma was recently honored with by the Crunchies Awards as the “best international startup.”