Pursuits
An Indestructible Coffee Machine for Extreme Caffeine
Coffeeboxx’s $200 portable maker offers a bold brew in rugged conditions. Or, you know, a novelty for the effete.
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A promotional video for the Coffeeboxx shows it being thoroughly abused: It rattles around the bed of a pickup, falls victim to a shower of steel parts, is placed under a Jeep—and, finally, gets blown 20 feet into the air with explosives before returning to earth in one piece. “Made beyond rugged to deliver in the harshest environments,” the narrator says. “Built for those who bring it.” But who needs to bring it to a blast zone?
Thousands of people, apparently. In December, 4,500 Coffeeboxxes were sold, quadruple the number in any month since the product was introduced in April 2015. “It didn’t take long before customers were raving,” says Robert Wilburn, online associate merchant for Home Depot Inc., which sells the machines for $200.