A compacted coffee tablet, in particular a tablet of compacted roast and ground coffee beans, presenting an advantageous configuration in terms of compaction process, maintenance of shape and efficiency of coffee extraction, in particular of espresso type coffee. A beverage preparation systems including the compacted coffee tablet, and production processes thereof.

A compacted coffee tablet (1), in particular a tablet of compacted roast and ground coffee beans, presenting an advantageous configuration in terms of compaction process, maintenance of shape and efficiency of coffee extraction, in particular of espresso type coffee. A beverage preparation systems including the compacted coffee tablet (1).

Compostable capsule for preparing a beverage, in particular a hot beverage, comprising a core material of a bulk material, in particular selected from the group consisting of coffee powder, tea, cocoa, drinking chocolate, milk powder, instant coffee and dry soup and combinations thereof, and a cladding material encasing the core material, wherein the cladding material is a compostable, non-crosslinked polysaccharide.

A wrapped food product, the food product being preferably in the form of an infusion product, in particular in the form of a material in the form of powder, granules or pieces, such as tea, camomile, coffee or other, wrapped in a respective wrapper; the wrapper being made of biodegradable and/or organic film, which is wrapped around and closely connected, or adherent, to the material.

A method of producing coffee tablets for making coffee from roasted coffee beans and other ingredients, including: roasting and grinding coffee beans to obtain two or three fractions of different granularity, forming a serving dose and feeding ingredients sequentially into a moistened press matrix and mixing them, pressing tablets and simultaneously heating a superficial layer, controlling and packaging tablets. A blend, a roasting degree, a fraction size, weight and density are selected in a coffee tablet in such a manner so that a cup of premium coffee could be brewed at home, in an office, in a car, a train and a plane.

The present application relates to improvements in machines for the preparation of beverage and food products, and in particular to such a machine which utilizes a compressed tablet of food or beverage product, which is inserted into the brew chamber of the machine, into which a liquid is directed to break up or dissolve the tablet. The machine for preparing a beverage or food product from a compressed disc of at least one ingredient includes a sealable brew chamber, and said brew chamber includes means for mounting the disc so that it is able to spin freely around a central axis. The brew chamber further includes an at least one nozzle having an outlet in the brew chamber located to direct a jet of liquid at a peripheral edge of the disc mounted in the brew chamber.

A ground roast coffee tablet which is capable of being brewed in a conventional automatic drip coffee maker, and which exhibits sufficient strength to withstand all aspects of manufacture, handling, packaging, transport without breakage but also readily disintegrates when contacted with hot water during brewing, is made by subjecting conventional ground, roasted coffee to a multi-step compaction process in which at least two compression steps are carried out in the same compaction die.

A method of making a tablet for hot espresso beverage extraction includes the steps of grinding a brewable product to obtain a powder having a substantially uniform particle size, dosing a predetermined amount of the ground product powder, moistening the powdered product dose, homogenizing the moistened mixture to obtain a powdered product with a substantially uniform moisture content, forming the powdered product dose to obtain a disk-shaped or prismatic tablet, and supplying an amount of energy to the tablet to obtain a substantially compact and integral item. The step of supplying energy is carried out by irradiating the tablet with an electromagnetic wave beam to overheat and partially bake and/or sinter the particles of the powdered product and impart a relatively compact and self-supporting construction to the finished tablet. The electromagnetic wave irradiation step is carried out at the end of the forming step while continuously compressing the dose.

A method of dispensing a beverage comprising: a) inserting a beverage ingredient tablet (20) into a beverage preparation machine (30); b) measuring a characteristic associated with the thickness of at least a portion of the beverage ingredient tablet (20) to identify the beverage ingredient tablet (20); c) configuring one or more dispense parameters of the beverage preparation machine (30) based on the identification of the beverage ingredient tablet (20); and d) operating the beverage preparation machine (30) to dispense a beverage by contacting the beverage ingredient tablet (20) with an aqueous fluid.

In a method for producing tablets for extraction of a liquid food product, a plurality of dosed amounts of a moistened powder ingredient are loaded into respective forming cavities of a multi-cavity forming device, the multi-cavity forming device is then introduced into a multimode cavity of a microwave oven, and thereafter the multi-cavity forming device is removed from the multimode cavity. The multimode cavity is prearranged in such a way that an irradiation of the microwaves thereinto causes heating of all dosed amounts of the ingredient in the respective forming cavities of the multi-cavity forming device, to form simultaneously a plurality of tablets each having a self-supporting structure.