We know about charcoal coffee, but what about coffee charcoal?

Our beloved Chroniclers know all about charcoal coffee, but what about coffee charcoal? That's charcoal made of coffee. It's like making a sow's ear out of a silk purse.

Coffee Coal is a product invented by Rich Bruins. Coffee Coals is a company owned by Rich Bruins. Coffee coal is coffee grounds condensed into little lumps by Rich Bruins.

Rich Bruins spent two years working as an associate campus minister at Purdue Christian Campus House in Indiana. He took a group of students and a biomass press to a coffee farm in Guatemala. He used the press to condense their biological and agricultural waste into dense briquettes which the Guatemalans then used to cook food and boil water. That's just so much more useful than teaching them English or having a kick-about.

Rich then spent two years - he's a biennial kind of guy - perfecting a formula to convert used coffee grounds into briquettes. He established Coffee Coals in 2013.

The coals burn at cooking temperature for about an hour and only take around five minutes to reach that temperature. Despite claiming that no coffee flavour is released during cooking, the coals apparently have a "unique and aromatic profile" - if not of coffee then we're stumped.

Due to the natural ingredients, Coffee Coals claim to have no health risks, which we can only assume excludes the risk of getting burnt. They contain no petrochemicals (don't know) and no synthetic binders (fake Filofaxes?) so they're just marvellous, really.

The coals don't stop being marvellous just because they're spent - the ash can be used to enrich your soil. The magnesium and potassium go down a storm with plants, so in effect you could use coffee to grow coffee. It's just like Inception, a Leonardo Di Caprio film which is really confusing, but Rich Bruins is such an all-round do-gooder that he'd probably explain it to you.

If you want some Coffee Coals, move to America and Rich will send you some for $6.15. Alternatively, you could move to Guatemala and wait for Coffee Coals to turn a profit, as when it does, it will send more students and biomass presses. The internet can show you how to make your own biomass press for $15, so maybe Rich and his students should just install 4G, teach them English and have a kick-about. Better still, Rich could team up with Sainsbury's and take a load of their disposable barbecues over - they're a steal at the moment.