You never give it any thought, and there are billions of them out there, but the amount of design and passion and creativity that goes into this little disc is remarkable.
你从不会特别留意它, 世界上有几十亿个它的同类, 但是这个小小圆盘中 汇聚的设计、热情与创意 实在令人叹服。
[Small thing.]
【小事物】
[Big idea.]
【大智慧】
The coffee cup lid is a lid for your coffee cup. It snaps on. It has an opening. You've got lids with a little latch that opens and closes. You've got ones that are in creative shapes.
咖啡杯盖是为 你的咖啡杯准备的盖子。 它与咖啡杯完美配合。 它留有供人饮用的开口。 你可以通过一个小锁闩, 打开和关闭这个饮用口。 有的杯盖的形状富有创意。
Coffee cup lids have their own vocabulary. People talk about the "peripheral skirts," the "press-in dimples," the "fragrance outlets," the "slosh factor." But you need these words, because so much thought and innovation goes into these coffee cup lids.
咖啡杯盖有其专有词汇。 人们会谈到 “外周裙边 (peripheral skirts)”, “摁入式凹槽(press-in dimples)”, “香味排出口(fragrance outlets)”, “泼溅指数(slosh factor)”。 但你需要这些词汇, 因为这些咖啡杯盖中 倾注了如此多匠心与创新。
Our society is just more and more mobile. Everything is on the move. The good part: it's convenient. You can drink coffee anywhere, you don't have the stay in the diner. It can be in the subway. You can be walking. The bad part is, it's harder to savor a coffee when you're taking it on the road.
我们社会的流动性正在日益增加。 一切都在奔波着。 好处是:方便。 你随时随地都能喝咖啡, 不需要坐在餐厅里饮用。 可以在地铁上。 可以在行走途中。 坏处是,当你拿着咖啡上路时, 更难品尝咖啡的风味。
The first patent for a lid on a cup was in 1934, but it was for cold beverages. And in 1950, this guy named James Reifsnyder invented the first snap-on lid. But it didn't have an opening for drinking.
杯盖的首个专利 问世于 1934 年, 但它是为冷饮设计的。 1950 年,一个名叫詹姆斯 · 雷夫斯奈德 (James Reifsnyder)的人 发明了第一个扣合式杯盖。 但它并没有供饮用的开口。
In the '60s there was this huge cultural shift, where people started drinking coffee on the move. And 7-Eleven was the first to sell coffee to go. And then came this revolution in 1967. A man named Alan Frank invented a lid that you could peel a tab off, like in the shape of a guitar pick, and drink it from there. In 1975, another big advance: you could peel back a tab and attach it to the lid itself. So, more and more people started drinking coffee on the go.
到了 60 年代, 发生了巨大的文化变迁, 人们开始边走边喝咖啡。 7-Eleven 便利店是 首个提供外卖咖啡的店。 随后是 1967 年的变革。 一个名叫阿兰 · 弗兰克 (Alan Frank)的人设计了一款新杯盖, 你可以从杯盖上 撕掉一块状似吉他拨片的撕裂片 从那儿喝到咖啡。 1975 年,又一次重大进步: 你可以揭开杯口的小片, 把它卡在盖子上。 于是,越来越多人 开始喝外卖咖啡。
In 1984, a watershed moment in the history of coffee cup lids: the birth of the traveler lid. And it is iconic -- you've seen it a million times. And it solved a whole host of problems. It's designed so that you don't splash your face, because it's higher than any of the other ones. And it's got this protruding rim, so it slightly cools the coffee before it hits your lips. It's got a small depression in the center for your nose, so you can really get in there and get maximum aroma. It's got this tiny air hole that lets the steam out and stops it from creating a vacuum.
1984 年,人们见证了 咖啡杯盖史的转折点: 旅行杯盖的诞生。 这是个标志性杯盖—— 你见到它不下百万次。 并且它解决了诸多问题。 它的设计不会让咖啡溅到脸上, 因为它比其它杯盖要高。 它有这样的突出杯沿, 因而可以在咖啡碰到 嘴唇前对其稍加冷却。 它的中心有个 为鼻子设计的小凹陷, 这样你就能充分沉浸其中, 享受到最浓郁的芬芳。 它有个迷你气孔, 能够排出蒸汽, 防止杯内形成负压。
This is one of those objects where you just don't notice it until it dribbles on your lap. So I think the coffee cup lid will just continue to evolve, and you're going to see a move away from single-use plastic lids to lids that are a little more sustainable. We're not going to stop moving. We're not going to stop drinking coffee. And I think that's what these coffee lid engineers are trying to do, is to make it so that the experience of taking it on the road is as good as sitting in a restaurant, drinking from a ceramic cup. Because, you know, coffee is serious business.
就是这种毫不起眼的东西, 可以防止咖啡洒在你的裤子上。 我觉得咖啡杯盖还会继续进化, 你将会看到由一次性塑料杯盖 向更加环保的杯盖转变。 我们不会停止奔波。 我们不会停止享用咖啡。 我觉得这就是咖啡杯盖 工程师试图做到的事: 在路上喝咖啡 和坐在餐厅里从陶瓷杯中 啜饮咖啡的体验同样惬意。 因为你我皆知, 喝咖啡可是正事。