In Improved Sugar Packets GaborKiss wished for a sugar packet that only took one hand. I think it could be done at minimal (not zero, but small) cost increase over the sugar packets that take two hands.
**Use the sugar pill others have described in the comments on Improved Sugar Packets.
**Shape it as a double cone, pointed at both ends, smooth-surfaced like a SweetTart. Like so: <>
**Wrap it similarly to the way it is now, or, even better, a tube shape with a similar crimped seal.
To use, squeeze one end, which forces the pill out the crimp, through the hole in the lid, and into your coffee -- untouched by human hands, as they say.The wrapper stays between your fingers.
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That seems like it ought to work. My concern with a sugar pill is that it might take longer to dissolve. However, not knowing anything about it, it might actually work the other way. The compressive forces holding the pill together might encourage it to disentegrate once they begin to be released, sor of like a glass Rupert's drop.
Well, maybe it could be pressurized like the "pop rocks" candy that was popular here a few years ago. Quick dissolving, and self-stirring, too!
I'll test it -- throw some sweettarts in coffee, wait for a while, discard the contents, and look for lumps. I'm not drinking it, though -- devotion to science has its limits.
Well, GaborKiss called my bluff. So, in the interests of science and my self-respect, I threw a half-dozen SweetTarts into a coffee cup of hot water. It took 3 minutes for them to dissolve.
The resulting solution tended to stay at the bottom of the cup, due no doubt to the higher density of sugar solution compared to hot water - or coffee, I'm sure. So, the little darlin's need to be hollow or made of sugar-foam so they float and the resulting solution has time to disperse as it sinks.
Really, the whole thing would be simpler if I could plan far enough in advance to say, "Hey, could you please put a couple packets of sugar in there before you put the coffee in?" Of course, the reason I am drinking the coffee is that I am having trouble planning that far in advance.
Well, my wife, expert gatherer that she is, found some Pop Rocks candy. The results were interesting. Dropped the whole contents into hot water. Surprisingly loud popping, and some of the rocks jumped right out of the cup.
Also surprising was the nearly complete lack of stirring action by the bubbles. The resulting strawberry-flavored syrup was even more stratified than the SweetTarts result. No joy at all AFA self-stirring.
So, I guess we can get the sugar into the cup, one-handed, with the lid on it, but getting it to stir itself just beggars my current imagining power. Ah, well.
But you could have a stirring stick like a soda straw full of sugar, which could go through the lid without much risk of spilling. How's that?