(Roughly) Daily

xkcd

Today’s street prices on TI Graphing Calculators: $100-220.  One notes the irony that TI is widely credited with having pioneered the strategy of pricing to the learning curve.

As we lament the captive market created by the prevalence of the SAT and AP exams, we might recall that it was on this date in 1938 that Nescafé instant coffee was introduced in Switzerland by the Nestlé company (inpart, motivated by the need to help the Brazilian government solve its coffee surplus problem.

Instant coffee was invented in 1901 by Satori Kato, a Japanese scientist working in Chicago. Kato introduced the powdered potion in Buffalo, New York, at the Pan-American Exposition. George Constant Louis Washington developed his own instant coffee process shortly thereafter, and first marketed it commercially (~1910).

But Nestlé improved the production process: they created their Instant coffee with a blend of beans, mixed in a drum, roasted and ground, then brewed in huge percolators, sprayed into a heated stainless steel dryer to remove all water, and finally packed as the small, dry granules now so well known.

Spray-Process Instant Coffee