Beverage dispenser with multi-chambered carousel and automatic coordination of flavorant flow rate

A household appliance with a water and flavored beverage dispenser that allows a consumer to select a flavorant to be added to water to form a flavored beverage, the appliance comprising:

• an appliance body;
• a rotatable carousel mounted in the appliance body that includes a plurality of sockets for receiving containers containing flavorant;
• a plurality of containers in the sockets;
• a sensor adapted to sense an indication of the flavor of the flavorant of a first container retained in a first socket and to generate a signal that indicates the flavor;
• a controller that receives the signal that indicates the flavor, the controller adapted to generate a flavor display instruction;
• a display adapted to display the flavor in response to the flavor display instruction received from the controller;
• and
• a dispensing mechanism within each of the plurality of containers, wherein the dispensing mechanism in the first container selectively dispenses flavorant from the first container into a supply of water to form a beverage.

A household appliance comprising:

• an appliance body;
• a rotatable carousel mounted in the appliance body that includes a plurality of sockets for receiving flavorant containers;
• a water inlet for attachment to a water supply;
• a water outlet downstream from the water inlet;
• a water control valve between the water inlet and the water outlet;
• a plurality of flavorant containers in the sockets containing flavorant;
• a flavorant dispenser within each of the plurality of flavorant containers that selectively dispenses flavorant from one of the flavorant containers;
• a sensor that senses a water quality at the water inlet upstream from the water control valve;
• a dispensing mechanism that selectively controls the flavorant dispenser and dispenses flavorant from the one of the flavorant containers into water from the water outlet to form a flavored beverage;
• and
• a dispensing mechanism control that automatically varies a rate at which the dispensing mechanism dispenses the flavorant dependent upon the sensed water quality.