  We consider how the absence of thermalisation affects the classical Coulomb
blockade regime in quantum dots. By solving the quantum kinetic equation in the
experimentally accessible regime when the dot has two relevant occupation
states, we calculate the current-voltage characteristics for arbitrary coupling
to the leads. If the couplings are strongly asymmetric, we have found that the
Coulomb staircase practically reduces to the first step independent of the
charging energy when the latter is larger than the Fermi energy, while the
standard thermalised results are recovered in the opposite case. If the
couplings are of the same order, the absence of thermalisation has a new,
striking signature - a robust additional peak in the differential conductance.
