Vincent Raia Jr.'s Keurig coffee K-cup trick makes for viral video
Vincent A. Raia Jr., 55, of East Setauket wears the crown a neighbor gave him to celebrate his feat. Credit: Katherine Lehmann Raia
A video of an East Setauket man dropping a K-Cup from his bald head straight into his Keurig coffee machine and screaming with delight has gone viral, with more than 9 million Twitter views since being posted last week.
Vincent A. Raia Jr., 55, who sells dental equipment, said it was last December when he decided he couldn’t wait for his coffee water to boil without somehow occupying his mind — or his head — in the meantime. He tried (unsuccessfully) to land the cup from his head for about a month, but scored it on the first try once he decided to record his efforts on his cellphone. In the video, he's seen in his kitchen with his wife, who calls him a "jerk" for performing such antics.
But the video didn’t get past the cellphone of his 22-year-old daughter, Kaleigh, for a year until fellow students at Penn State, where she’s a food science major, convinced her to post it on her Twitter page as she was clearing photos from her phone Thursday night.
Raia said he showed the video to friends and family last December but thought that was the end of it. Then on his way up to see Kaleigh at college last Thursday he and his wife got a text about all the “likes” Kaleigh was getting on the 11-second video.
“This dude does not need coffee,” one Twitter comment said.
“I don’t have Twitter or Instagram, so I didn’t know anything about it — I had sent that video out a year ago,” Raia said in a telephone interview Monday. On Instagram it received more than 3 million views. “Once we got to Penn State it was like the buzz. It’s insane how it blew up.”
Raia said his “five minutes of fame” also resulted in a neighbor making him a paper crown that reads, “Keurig King” to “cap my perfect weekend.”
And he's learned the trick is not easily replicated.
“Now, I just do it for fun," he said. "Usually lands 1 out of 10 times.”
