Marco.org

Dr. Drang responded to my Coffee Joulies review and explains, with much more scientific knowledge than I have, why Coffee Joulies don’t work very well, and likely can’t work very well given practical constraints.

I’ve been casually using my Joulies on and off since I posted my review to see if my opinion would change. I even got a nice email from the Joulies’ inventors, which I didn’t expect (and which they certainly didn’t need to do). I truly feel bad for these guys that the Joulies don’t work better.

But they just don’t. I’ve tried them in ceramic mugs, open travel mugs, and sealed travel mugs on a long car ride, and no situation has shown enough improvement with the Joulies for me to notice.

As I discussed on last week’s podcast, they’re still probably going to sell a ton of these things. They look great, they’re related to coffee, they purport to solve a problem that inconveniences nearly every coffee and tea drinker, they’re priced in the medium-sized-gift range, and they could be applicable in gift-giving to a lot of demographics who are typically difficult to shop for.

Most owners will use them happily, assume they work, and never perform a controlled test. Or they’ll follow the suggestions of switching to an insulated mug, which will help anyway, and attribute the improvement to the Joulies. Whatever the case, I bet a lot of people are going to happily own and use Joulies regardless of any underwhelmed online reviews.