Coffee straw or stirrer or both?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “where to buy coffee stirrers“
Coffee straw or stirrer or both?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “where to buy coffee stirrers“
I think is because of the density variation and there is also an equal chance of use as a sipper. The solid plastic form which has less density would float on the coffee where as the hollow would directly stay upright as per the situation required. The two straws combined gives added strength and also a equal opportunity for the consumer to drink through it.
It has two reasons why coffee stirrer has holes or why they look like straws:
First to save the amount of plastic used for manufacturing.
Second which i think is the actual reason is to prevent the stirrer from floating on the coffee. As the holes in the coffee stirrer will get filled with coffee while stirring . So it will decrease the buoyant force and prevent the stirrer from floating.
These are meant to be stirrers only, not straws.
They are far too small to be effective as straws. You’d be sucking ’til your head implodes to get a satisfying volume of liquid through one of these.
There is a reason for their similarity to straws though. The cylinder is one of the strongest basic shapes you can make. Manufacturers can use a relatively small amount of plastic to get a relatively strong stirrer just by making a cylinder.
If you made a stirrer as a flat length of plastic, it would easily buckle as you try to stir your coffee. If you make that same flat length of plastic out of two or three joined cylinders, it will be structurally stronger. Same volume of plastic is used, but the stirrer is much stronger. Same price, better stirrer.
It acts as:
Stirrer: The wider shape enables it to stir the coffee/tea,
Straw: Tiny holes enables hot beverage to be sipped while having less chance of burning the tongue as compared to bigger holes straw. Tiny holes ensure it is harder to suck the drink up, therefore drink goes up slower and at the same time enables heat to be distributed to surrounding. When the tiny straw is made in 2 or 3 straw, it enables more areas to distribute the heat to surrounding.
Something to bite onto: Straw that is 2 or 3 straws combined enabled it to be bitten or held onto mouth easier as compared to just one tiny straw.
It’s darn difficult sipping coffee through those tiny-diameter capillaries (I speak from experience 🙂 ). I’ve always thought it was to save material/manufacturing cost – when you make hundreds of thousands of those things, saving plastic from inside those tubes may save 20% or so of material/cost. Solid straws would be no better than hollow ones for stirring.
Victor Allen’s
These might not be the exact reasons, but i want to point out some of the advantages of this design:-
1. These stirrers were designed keeping in mind the “on the go” customers, these customers don’t have time to sit and have their coffee, they are either getting late for work or are just looking to grab some breakfast and coffee on their way to get somewhere and it becomes difficult to drink coffee while you are walking or running, chances are that they might spill the hot coffee, which may or may not cause burns, but will surly leave a coffee stain, keeping this problem in mind the designers must have designed the stirrers to serve as a straw as well.
2 . The size of the holes might be intentionally designed smaller so that the customer can have the exact quantity of liquid as he/she would have taken in one sip from the cup, as we tend to take smaller sips of hot beverages as opposed to colder beverages, which also makes sure that he/she doesn’t burn his/her tongue,
3. This design also helps the coffee house save the cost of providing extra straws in addition to the stirrers, since these straws would have to be made from high quality thermosetting plastic as opposed to the normal straws which are designed keeping only cold beverages in mind, hot beverages like coffee would cause the plastic straw to bend, de-shape or even melt,but as stirrers already are made of thermosetting plastic and can tolerate high temperatures and still maintain its shape,all they had to do is Make some holes,
4. Not to forget all the plastic they save from making the stirrer hollow .
5. This design also provides added strength to the stirrer as strength to weight ratio is better for a hollow pipe than a solid rod.
So all in all this is a much more useful design as compared to the normal stirrer without any holes and I have to say that it is a rather ingenious design.simple yet brilliant design.
It’s easier to make strong with holes.
Eight O’Clock
I always assumed it was done to save plastic.
Having said that, I used to work with a guy who actually drank his coffee through the stirrer. He was actually a bit weird in many other ways as well.
Let’s look at how people typically use these objects.
As a stirrer
As a straw
Uncommonly, as a way to blow air into the cup (perhaps this is not an intended use, but is equally plausible).
I expect the thing to be used as a stirrer and a straw. Sometimes, you may take a small sip of something (like a hot beverage) to see if you like it (temperature, taste, etc). Perhaps it is in such situations that the holes actually are useful.
There’s a simpler reason for why this may be the design. Sometimes, simple artifacts like this are byproducts of some other manufacturing process, and usually, you want to make as much from the byproducts as a business. Naturally, this would mean using hollow straws, rather than thicker, more massive solid plastic stirrers.
PS: There’s probably yet another reason. Hollow stirrers will have a little more stiffness than solid stirrers for the same cross sectional area. Which means you can spend less material and give someone the same stirring experience. But perhaps I am overthinking this specific reason.
Definitely not intended to be used as a straw. Have you tried this? You’ll burn the back of your throat!
My guess is the holes are there because it saves fractions on material cost (i.e. less material used while still being “functional”)
On another note: I HATE the plastic stirs with holes. You know, the ones that are like midget straws. When you stick the dang thing in hot liquid, it goes limp! Its like trying to use a piece of yarn to stir your coffee.
Wood is probably better for the environment, and doesn’t go all limp on you.