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Nutrimatic Drink Dispenser
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser is a product of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, a machine featured in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
The Guide has this to say on the Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser:
When the 'Drink' button is pressed it makes an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject's metabolism, and then sends tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centres of the subject's brain to see what is likely to be well received. However, no-one knows quite why it does this because it then invariably delivers a cupful of liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur Dent manages to freeze up a Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser (along with the rest of the spaceship they are on) by asking it to make him tea, due to the various servings of the terrible-tasting sludge he'd received from the machine during the entire trip. The Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser defined tea as "The taste of dried-up leaves boiled in water."
In the film adaptation, a machine similar to the drinks dispenser appears, serving brown sludge into a plastic cocktail glass. However, it is not mentioned by name, nor does it engage Arthur in conversation. There is also a similar machine nearby that detects and produces - according to Trillian - "what you're craving." However, this one seems to actually work properly.