Coffee from thin air to your glass

No magic wand, but it even brews your cuppa on demand.

- Arthur Goldstuck

Just in time for our taps running dry, Kara Pod has arrived to distil drinking water from fresh air and serve coffee.

CES in Las Vegas always has its surprises; if you are surprised by AI-powered toasters and foldable things no one asked for.

But between the myriad new gadgets on display at the world's biggest consumer technology fair this week, no one should be surprised that some novel devices do meet a pressing need.

For South Africans, and especially Johannesburg residents resigned to regular water outages, the Kara Pod is genuinely intriguing. It is nothing less than a machine that promises to turn thin air into high-quality drinking water—and no magic wand or even municipal permission (same thing) required. More significantly, it also brews coffee on demand.

What is it?

Described as the "world's first self-refilling coffee machine," the Kara Pod claims to extract water from air, enrich it with minerals, and serve it alkaline. It then moonlights as a coffee and tea brewer.

The device has picked up a CES Innovation Award, but then so did several other gadgets, and many an awardee from the past has disappeared without a trace.

The "Make water out of nothing! Impress your friends!" hype around the Kara Pod sounds like a late-night infomercial, but the science checks out.