{ "id": "history-of-brewing", "url": "https://coffearium.org/entries/history-of-brewing/", "license": "CC-BY-4.0", "title": "History of brewing", "summary": "How coffee brewing moved from boiling in a pot to drip pots, percolators, vacuum brewers, paper filters and plunger pots, and which of the usual dates rest on patents and which only on later accounts.", "domain": "history", "kind": "History", "stage": "brew", "topics": [ "history", "equipment" ], "topicSections": {}, "lang": "en", "status": "verified", "reviewer": "Coffearium verification pass", "lastVerified": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z", "literatureSearched": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z", "updated": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z", "added": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z", "brief": [ "The first coffee drink in Yemen was made by boiling dried coffee husks, according to a historian; Turkish coffee is still brewed slowly in a pot on a stove.1,2", "An 1887 American household manual describes the biggin, or French filter coffee-pot, with strainers in an upper pot, and still debates boiling against filtering.4", "Hanson Goodrich’s US patent of 1889 describes a stove-top percolator: heated water rises through a tube and circulates continuously through the coffee.7", "Melitta Bentz registered a paper coffee filter as a utility model on 20 June 1908; Peter Schlumbohm’s filter flask, the Chemex, was patented in the USA in 1941.10,12", "Filtering changes the cup: in a 2025 study boiled coffee held 939 mg/L cafestol, and paper-filtered home brews a median of 12 mg/L.14" ], "quickFacts": [ { "label": "Oldest method", "value": "Boiling (decoction); still used for Turkish coffee" }, { "label": "Drip pot (biggin)", "value": "Strainers in an upper pot; described in an 1887 US manual" }, { "label": "Stove-top percolator", "value": "US 408,707, Hanson Goodrich, granted 13 Aug 1889" }, { "label": "Paper filter", "value": "Utility model, Melitta Bentz, 20 Jun 1908" }, { "label": "Plunger pot", "value": "US 1,797,672 (Italian priority 2 Apr 1928), granted 24 Mar 1931" }, { "label": "Chemex", "value": "US 2,241,368, Peter Schlumbohm, granted 6 May 1941" }, { "label": "Moka pot", "value": "1933, Alfonso Bialetti" } ], "aka": [ "History of coffee brewing", "History of coffee makers", "Coffee brewing history" ], "linkTerms": [ "biggin", "coffee biggin", "French filter coffee-pot", "French drip pot", "stove-top percolator", "coffee percolator", "vacuum brewer", "vacuum coffee maker", "siphon coffee maker", "siphon brewer", "boiled coffee" ], "related": [ "brew-methods", "ottoman-coffee-and-the-cezve", "history-of-the-espresso-machine", "filter-coffee-machines", "moka-pot", "cold-brew", "coffeehouses-from-mecca-to-europe", "coffee-drinks-around-the-world", "eras-and-waves-of-coffee", "coffee-oil" ], "contested": [ "Who invented the vacuum brewer: a science museum names the German physics professor Johann Nörrenberg as the first to write about the technique, in 1823 (the journal reference the museum itself lists is dated 1827), and Louis François Florimond Boulanger as the first to apply for a patent, in 18358; another museum credits the Scottish marine engineer Robert Napier with inventing this type of coffeemaker in 1840.9 No patent record or historian’s text consulted for this entry settles the question.", "How the percolator affected the cup: a historian holds that American percolators over-extracted coffee by passing boiling water through it repeatedly1; Goodrich’s patent presents continuous circulation as the way to extract the strength of the coffee.7 No measurement of percolator extraction was consulted for this entry." ], "corrections": [ { "date": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z", "change": "The Chemex patent is no longer described as joining funnel and flask in “one glass piece”; it now says “in one piece”.", "reason": "Verification pass; US 2,241,368 describes funnel and flask formed integral with each other or joined as a single element but names no material." }, { "date": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z", "change": "Vacuum brewer dates now note that the NEMO story's own journal reference for Nörrenberg is dated 1827, while its text gives 1823.", "reason": "Verification pass; the reference list of the NEMO story (Zeitschrift für Physik und Mathematik, vol. 3) is dated 1827." } ], "sources": [ { "id": "s1", "title": "We Consumers – Tastes, Rituals, and Waves", "authors": "Morris, J.", "year": 2017, "publisher": "In: Folmer, B. (ed.), The Craft and Science of Coffee, Academic Press, ch. 19 (pp. 459–460, 466–468 and 485 cited)", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-803520-7.00019-0", "doi": "10.1016/B978-0-12-803520-7.00019-0", "tier": "B", "tierNote": "Chapter by a university historian in a textbook; read in the local full text supplied by the editor. The Folmer chapters (s1 and s3) count as one Tier B source and carry no number or exact date alone.", "quote": "This was an infusion produced by boiling water with the desiccated husks of coffee cherries", "quotes": [ { "text": "principally by using percolators that overextracted the beans by repeatedly passing boiling water through them", "for": "American percolators and low brew ratios" }, { "text": "the housewife experiments with percolators, with drip coffee, with Silex machines", "for": "devices in American homes in the 1920s" }, { "text": "the rediscovery of the Chemex (a brewing method originally pioneered in the 1940s)", "for": "Chemex in the third wave" } ], "scope": { "claim": "cited", "context": "Historian’s narrative of coffee consumption; the qishr passage cites Hattox (1985), the 1920s quotation cites Prendergast (2010).", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s2", "title": "Turkish coffee culture and tradition", "authors": "UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage", "year": 2013, "publisher": "UNESCO", "url": "https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/turkish-coffee-culture-and-tradition-00645", "tier": "A", "quote": "The freshly roasted beans are ground to a fine powder;", "quotes": [ { "text": "then the ground coffee, cold water and sugar are added to a coffee pot and brewed slowly on a stove", "for": "Turkish coffee brewed in a pot on a stove" } ], "scope": { "claim": "description", "context": "Inscription text of the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (Türkiye, 2013).", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s3", "title": "The Brew – Extracting for Excellence", "authors": "Mestdagh, F.; Glabasnia, A.; Giuliano, P.", "year": 2017, "publisher": "In: Folmer, B. (ed.), The Craft and Science of Coffee, Academic Press, ch. 15, pp. 355–380", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-803520-7.00015-3", "doi": "10.1016/B978-0-12-803520-7.00015-3", "tier": "B", "tierNote": "Textbook chapter; read in the local full text supplied by the editor. Counts with s1 as one Tier B source.", "quote": "Turkish coffee is prepared by boiling the coffee in water.", "quotes": [ { "text": "At these high temperatures, also less water soluble compounds are extracted that give the typical intense, bitter, and dark-chocolate flavors.", "for": "what boiling extracts" }, { "text": "The boiling may happen multiple times, depending on the practice of the brewer.", "for": "repeated boiling" }, { "text": "invented by Alfonso Bialetti in 1933", "for": "moka pot date (with s13)" } ], "scope": { "claim": "description", "context": "Textbook description of brew methods; no own measurements in the passages cited.", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s4", "title": "Six Cups of Coffee: Prepared for the Public Palate by the Best Authorities on Coffee Making", "authors": "Parloa, M.; Owen, C.; Harland, M.; Corson, J.; Campbell, H.; Lincoln, D. A.; Poole, H. M.", "year": 1887, "publisher": "Good Housekeeping Press, Clark W. Bryan & Co., Springfield, Massachusetts (Project Gutenberg ebook 46144)", "url": "https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/46144/pg46144-images.html", "tier": "B", "tierNote": "Public-domain historical work (household manual); a primary witness of American brewing practice in 1887, not a history of it.", "quote": "Various modifications of the biggin, or French filter coffee-pot, are in use.", "quotes": [ { "text": "This is a double coffee-pot, with one or more strainers in the upper pot.", "for": "construction of the biggin" }, { "text": "Whether coffee shall be boiled or not will probably be always a question.", "for": "boiling against filtering" }, { "text": "Break an egg into the bowl with the coffee, and stir well.", "for": "egg used to clear boiled coffee" }, { "text": "the coffee will be perfectly clear, without any egg to clear it.", "for": "egg as a clearing agent" }, { "text": "lay a piece of muslin (scalded) over it, and pour the coffee carefully through it.", "for": "muslin strainer" }, { "text": "A small bag of unbleached cloth is so arranged as to remain suspended about midway of the coffee-pot.", "for": "cloth bag in the pot" }, { "text": "A tin cylinder, furnished with two movable and one stationary strainers, is set on a coffee-pot.", "for": "strainers of the French biggin or grecque" } ], "scope": { "claim": "guidance", "context": "Six American cookery writers give their own coffee recipes, United States, 1887.", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s5", "title": "Coffee Biggin (ID DL.075341)", "authors": "Smithsonian National Museum of American History", "publisher": "Smithsonian Institution, collection record", "url": "https://si.edu/object/coffee-biggin:nmah_309625", "tier": "A/B", "tierNote": "A for the museum’s own catalogue description of the object; B for its dating (ca 1850–1875) and attribution.", "quote": "Three-part round-cornered rectangular drip coffee maker with lion mask handles.", "quotes": [], "scope": { "claim": "description", "context": "Museum catalogue record of one object, England, dated ca 1850–1875.", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s6", "title": "Coffee-percolator (US Patent 51,741)", "authors": "Nason, J. H.", "year": 1865, "publisher": "United States Patent Office; granted 26 December 1865", "url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US51741", "tier": "A/B", "tierNote": "Patent; A for how the device is built and for its grant date, never for performance.", "quote": "and thence percolates through the ground coffee", "quotes": [], "scope": { "claim": "description", "context": "Patent specification, Franklin, Massachusetts, USA.", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s7", "title": "Coffee-pot (US Patent 408,707)", "authors": "Goodrich, H.", "year": 1889, "publisher": "United States Patent Office; filed 12 January 1889, granted 13 August 1889", "url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US408707", "tier": "A/B", "tierNote": "Patent; A for how the device is built and for its filing and grant dates, never for performance.", "quote": "so that the water in said space after being heated can rise through the tube", "quotes": [ { "text": "will percolate through the same, so as to extract the strength therefrom", "for": "water percolates through the coffee" }, { "text": "It will thus be seen that a continuous circulation of the water is maintained", "for": "continuous circulation" } ], "scope": { "claim": "description", "context": "Patent specification, Hamilton County, Illinois, USA (town printed as Moleansborough in the scanned text).", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s8", "title": "Scientific brewing (Object of the Month, November 2020)", "authors": "NEMO Science Museum, Amsterdam", "year": 2020, "publisher": "Google Arts & Culture", "url": "https://artsandculture.google.com/story/qQWhX2rN84rQKQ", "tier": "B", "tierNote": "Museum story. Its text and an image caption date Nörrenberg’s description to 1823, but the one reference it lists for it (Zeitschrift für Physik und Mathematik, vol. 3) is dated 1827; it gives no reference for Boulanger’s 1835 application.", "quote": "This causes the water to rise up through the tube to the glasses at the top, which contain ground coffee.", "quotes": [ { "text": "Once the water is boiling, the vapour creates excess pressure in the glass sphere below.", "for": "vapour pressure lifts the water" }, { "text": "This causes a negative pressure, and delicious coffee flows back from the jug into the sphere.", "for": "coffee drawn back on cooling" }, { "text": "was the first to write about this brewing technique in the “Physik und Mathematik” journal in 1823.", "for": "Nörrenberg, 1823 (contested)" }, { "text": "This is Louis François Florimond Boulanger, who applied for the first patent in 1835.", "for": "Boulanger, 1835 (contested)" } ], "scope": { "claim": "description", "context": "Science museum object story on a vacuum coffee maker in its collection, Netherlands.", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s9", "title": "Strange Brew (featured object)", "authors": "DAR Museum", "publisher": "Daughters of the American Revolution Museum, Washington, DC", "url": "https://www.dar.org/museum/featured-object/strange-brew", "tier": "B", "tierNote": "Museum object text; gives no sources for the attribution to Napier.", "quote": "This strange-looking device is a siphon coffeemaker made in England between 1865 and 1875.", "quotes": [ { "text": "is credited with inventing this type of coffeemaker in 1840.", "for": "Napier, 1840 (contested)" } ], "scope": { "claim": "description", "context": "Museum description of one siphon coffeemaker in its collection, made in England.", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s10", "title": "75th anniversary of death of Melitta Bentz", "authors": "Potthast, J. B. (Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt, DPMA)", "publisher": "German Patent and Trade Mark Office", "url": "https://dpma.de/english/our_office/publications/ingeniouswomen/melittabentz/index.html", "tier": "A", "quote": "registered it as a utility model with the Imperial Patent Office on 20 June 1908", "quotes": [ { "text": "The inventor experimented in her kitchen with a roughly perforated brass cup as a sieve.", "for": "first prototype" }, { "text": "the drink was usually brewed by pouring hot water over ground coffee beans", "for": "brewing before the paper filter" }, { "text": "And the coffee grounds left an unpleasant aftertaste.", "for": "why a filter" }, { "text": "The new company was entered in the commercial register on 15 December 1908.", "for": "company registered" } ], "scope": { "claim": "data", "context": "Patent office account of the registration of the first paper coffee filter (Dresden, Germany).", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s11", "title": "Apparatus for preparing infusions, particularly for preparing coffee (US Patent 1,797,672)", "authors": "Paolini, U. (assignor of one half each to Calimani, A. and Moneta, G.)", "year": 1931, "publisher": "United States Patent Office; Italian priority 2 April 1928, filed 2 April 1929, granted 24 March 1931", "url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US1797672A/en", "tier": "A/B", "tierNote": "Patent; A for how the device is built and for its dates, never for performance.", "quote": "a slidable filtering member having a fit sufficiently tight within said vessel", "quotes": [], "scope": { "claim": "description", "context": "Patent specification, Milan, Italy (US filing).", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s12", "title": "Filtering device (US Patent 2,241,368)", "authors": "Schlumbohm, P.", "year": 1941, "publisher": "United States Patent Office; German priority 13 April 1938, filed 13 April 1939, granted 6 May 1941", "url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US2241368A/en", "tier": "A/B", "tierNote": "Patent; A for how the device is built and for its dates, never for performance.", "quote": "This invention relates to a filtering device and more particularly to a cofiee maker and tea.", "quotes": [ { "text": "serves as a pouring spout as well as an air passage for the air displaced by the filtrate", "for": "groove as spout and air passage" } ], "scope": { "claim": "description", "context": "Patent specification (US filing with German priority).", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s13", "title": "Alfonso Bialetti. Moka Express (object number 431.2008)", "authors": "The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York", "year": 2008, "publisher": "MoMA collection record, Department of Architecture and Design", "url": "https://www.moma.org/collection/works/118645", "tier": "B", "quote": "Designed 1933 (this example 2008)", "quotes": [], "scope": { "claim": "data", "context": "Museum collection record of one Moka Express.", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": "s14", "title": "Cafestol and kahweol concentrations in workplace machine coffee compared with conventional brewing methods", "authors": "Orrje, E.; Fristedt, R.; Rosqvist, F.; Landberg, R.; Iggman, D.", "year": 2025, "publisher": "Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases 35, 103933", "url": "https://research.chalmers.se/publication/545621/file/545621_Fulltext.pdf", "doi": "10.1016/j.numecd.2025.103933", "tier": "A", "quote": "Boiled coffee had high concentrations of cafestol and kahweol, 939 mg/L and 678 mg/L, but having it poured through a fabric filter reduced the concentrations to 28 and 21 mg/L.", "quotes": [ { "text": "After letting the powder sink to the bottom of the pot, the coffee was poured into the tube without using any filter.", "for": "how the boiled coffee was prepared" } ], "scope": { "claim": "finding", "context": "Brews sampled in Sweden (workplace machines, n = 14; home brews of five coffees with two paper filter types); LC–MS measurement.", "checked": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" }, "accessed": "2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z" } ], "markdown": "## Boiling: the oldest method\n\nThe first coffee drinks were boiled. According to a historian, the drink of Sufi communities in Yemen was made by boiling water with dried husks of coffee cherries.1 Boiling coffee and water together in a pot is called decoction. Turkish coffee keeps the method alive: the beans are ground to a fine powder and brewed slowly in a pot on a stove.2 According to a coffee science textbook, the coffee may come to the boil several times before the grounds settle.3 How the cezve and Ottoman coffee developed is covered in Ottoman coffee and the cezve.\n\nBoiling was still common in American homes in the late 19th century. An American household manual of 1887 shows the debate. One author writes that whether coffee should be boiled “will probably be always a question”.4 Several authors boil the coffee with a raw egg to clear the brew.4 Others pour it through scalded muslin or hang a small cloth bag in the pot.4\n\n## Drip pots and the biggin\n\nThe first step away from boiling was to let hot water drip through the grounds. The same 1887 manual calls the biggin a “French filter coffee-pot”.4 It describes it as a double coffee pot with one or more strainers in the upper pot.4 The ground coffee sits on a strainer; a coarse strainer is laid over it; boiling water is poured in and drips slowly through.4 One author describes a tin cylinder with two movable strainers and one fixed strainer, set on a coffee pot.4\n\nMuseum objects show how elaborate such pots became. A drip coffee maker in the Smithsonian collection, made in England and dated about 1850–1875, has three parts.5 The top holds a removable, perforated basket for the grounds, the middle has a tap, and the base holds a spirit burner.5 No source consulted for this entry dates the first biggin or explains the name.\n\n## Percolators: water pumped by its own heat\n\nA percolator moves the water through the coffee without a pour. In James Nason’s US patent of 1865, water poured into an inner vessel runs into a small cup, flows over it, “and thence percolates through the ground coffee”.6 A perforated disc, held by springs, rests on the coffee.6\n\nThe familiar stove-top percolator appears in a patent by Hanson Goodrich of Illinois. He filed it on 12 January 1889, and it was granted on 13 August 1889.7 Water is heated in a space under a base plate and rises through a central tube.7 It then flows over coffee held in a perforated cup and percolates through it.7 The patent stresses that “a continuous circulation of the water is maintained”.7\n\nPercolators shaped American coffee for decades. In the 1920s, according to a historian, housewives tried percolators, drip coffee and Silex machines in turn.1 He argues that percolators passing boiling water through the coffee again and again over-extracted it, which helped give American coffee its thin, weak style.1 Electric drip machines are covered in Filter coffee machines.\n\n## Vacuum brewers\n\nA vacuum brewer, also called a siphon brewer, uses steam pressure and suction. Water in a lower glass sphere is heated, for example by a spirit burner.8 Once it boils, the vapour pressure pushes the water up a tube into an upper vessel that holds the ground coffee.8 When the burner is removed, the sphere cools, and the falling pressure draws the coffee back down.8\n\nTwo museums date the first vacuum brewers to the first half of the 19th century, but they credit different people.8,9 One names a German physics professor and an early patent applicant; the other names a Scottish engineer (see Contested).8,9 A siphon coffeemaker in one of these collections was made in England in 1865–1875.9 How the vacuum brewer compares with other immersion methods is covered in Brew methods.\n\n## Paper filters, plunger pots and the moka pot\n\nThe paper filter came from a home kitchen in Dresden. Before it, coffee was usually brewed by pouring hot water over the grounds, and the grounds left an unpleasant aftertaste.10 Melitta Bentz first tried a perforated brass cup lined with blotting paper.10 She registered her coffee filter as a utility model with the Imperial Patent Office on 20 June 1908.10 Her company was entered in the commercial register on 15 December 1908.10\n\nThe plunger pot, also called the French press or cafetière, has a documented Italian root. A US patent with Italian priority of 2 April 1928, granted on 24 March 1931, describes a vessel with a tight-fitting, sliding filter.11 The inventor was Ugo Paolini of Milan, and the patent was assigned to Attilio Calimani and Giulio Moneta.11 Pushed down a rod, the filter traps the grounds at the bottom of the vessel.11\n\nPeter Schlumbohm filed a US patent for a “filtering device” on 13 April 1939, with German priority of 13 April 1938; it was granted on 6 May 1941.12 It joins a conical funnel and a flask in one piece, holds a paper filter, and has a groove that serves as both spout and air passage.12 A historian notes that third-wave cafés rediscovered this brewer, the Chemex.1\n\nAlfonso Bialetti designed the moka pot in 1933.3,13 It uses steam pressure in a closed boiler to push water up through the coffee, as described in Moka pot. The espresso machine has its own history in History of the espresso machine, and cold brew is covered in its own entry.\n\n\n\n## Four ways to move water\n\nThe history of brewing is a history of how water is brought to the coffee and how the grounds are kept out of the cup. The devices fall into four groups by how they move the water.\n\n- **Decoction.** Coffee and water are heated together. A textbook notes that at these high temperatures less water-soluble compounds are also extracted, giving intense, bitter and dark-chocolate flavours.3 The grounds stay in the pot and must settle before serving.3\n- **Gravity drip.** Water is poured on and passes once through a bed held on a strainer or filter, as in the biggin and the paper filter.4,10\n- **Recirculation.** In the pump percolator, heat drives the same water up a tube and back through the bed in continuous circulation.7 Nason’s earlier percolator relies on poured water flowing down through the coffee.6\n- **Vapour pressure.** In the vacuum brewer, steam pushes the water up to the coffee and cooling draws the brew back.8 The moka pot also uses steam pressure, but in one direction only (see Moka pot).\n\nThe filter matters for more than clarity. In a 2025 study, boiled coffee, poured off its grounds without any filter, held 939 mg/L cafestol.14 Poured through a fabric filter, the same brew held 28 mg/L.14 Paper-filtered home brews held a median of 12 mg/L.14 Cafestol and kahweol are coffee diterpenes; in the study, both cloth and paper held most of them back.14 The move from boiling to filtering therefore changed the composition of the cup, not only its look. The coffee oil entry covers these compounds.\n\n## Reference dates\n\n| Year | Device | Record | What the record shows | Evidence | Source |\n|---|---|---|---|---|---|\n| 1823–1840 | Vacuum brewer | Two museum accounts | First description, first patent application and invention credited to different people | Contested | 8,9 |\n| ca 1850–1875 | Three-part drip pot | Smithsonian object DL.075341, England | Basket for the grounds, tap, spirit-burner base | Museum catalogue | 5 |\n| 1865 | Percolator | US 51,741, J. H. Nason; granted 26 Dec 1865 | Poured water flows over a cup and percolates through the coffee under a sprung, perforated disc | Patent | 6 |\n| 1887 | Biggin and boiled coffee | Household manual, Springfield, Massachusetts | Biggin with strainers in the upper pot; boiling, egg clearing and cloth bags still in use | Primary text | 4 |\n| 1889 | Stove-top percolator | US 408,707, H. Goodrich; filed 12 Jan 1889, granted 13 Aug 1889 | Heated water rises through a tube and circulates continuously through the coffee | Patent | 7 |\n| 1908 | Paper filter | Utility model, Imperial Patent Office; 20 Jun 1908 | Filter with a curved, recessed base and inclined flow holes | Patent office | 10 |\n| 1928–1931 | Plunger pot | US 1,797,672, U. Paolini; Italian priority 2 Apr 1928, granted 24 Mar 1931 | Sliding filter on a rod traps the grounds at the bottom | Patent | 11 |\n| 1933 | Moka pot | Design by A. Bialetti | Stove-top pot using steam pressure | Two Tier B sources | 3,13 |\n| 1938–1941 | Chemex | US 2,241,368, P. Schlumbohm; German priority 13 Apr 1938, granted 6 May 1941 | One-piece funnel and flask with a paper filter and an air groove | Patent | 12 |\n\n
\n
\n
    \n
  1. 1823. A science museum dates the first description of the vacuum brewer, by Johann Nörrenberg, to this year, although the journal reference it lists is dated 1827; one source only (hollow mark).8
    2. \n
  2. 1835. First patent application for a vacuum brewer, by Louis François Florimond Boulanger, according to the same museum; one source only (hollow mark).8
    3. \n
  3. 1840. Robert Napier credited with inventing the siphon coffeemaker, according to another museum; one source only (hollow mark).9
    4. \n
  4. 1865. James Nason’s percolator patent granted.6
    5. \n
  5. 1887. An American household manual describes the biggin and still debates boiling against filtering.4
    6. \n
  6. 1889. Hanson Goodrich’s stove-top percolator patent filed and granted.7
    7. \n
  7. 1908. Melitta Bentz registers her paper coffee filter.10
    8. \n
  8. 1928. Italian priority of the plunger-pot patent (US grant 1931).11
    9. \n
  9. 1933. Alfonso Bialetti designs the moka pot.3,13
    10. \n
  10. 1938. German priority of Peter Schlumbohm’s filter flask, the Chemex (US grant 1941).12
    11. \n
\n
Dated milestones of home brewing, 1820–1945, at the year of the patent record or source; hollow marks are dates given by a single museum account without a primary record.4,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13
\n
\n\n## What the patents and objects describe\n\nPatents and museum objects show how each device was built, not how well it brewed. The three historic brewers below are drawn from their written descriptions. The biggin follows the 1887 manual and the Smithsonian object, the percolator follows Goodrich’s patent, and the vacuum brewer follows a science museum’s description.4,5,7,8\n\n
\n
\n
    \n
  1. Upper pot. Water is poured in here.4
    2. \n
  2. Spreading strainer. A coarse strainer laid over the grounds.4
    3. \n
  3. Coffee on a strainer. A perforated basket holds the grounds.4,5
    4. \n
  4. Lower pot. Collects the brew that drips through.4
    5. \n
  5. Water space under the base plate. Water is heated here.7
    6. \n
  6. Central tube. Heated water rises through it.7
    7. \n
  7. Perforated coffee cup. Water flows over the coffee and percolates through it, back into the pot.7
    8. \n
  8. Upper vessel. Holds the ground coffee; water rises into it.8
    9. \n
  9. Tube. Connects the two vessels.8
    10. \n
  10. Lower glass sphere. Steam pressure pushes the water up; on cooling, the coffee flows back.8
    11. \n
  11. Spirit burner. Heats the water.8
    12. \n
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Three historic brewers in section: A, a drip pot (biggin); B, a stove-top percolator after Goodrich’s patent of 1889; C, a vacuum brewer. Dashed arrows show the water path; dashed lines without arrows are strainers. Schematic, not to scale.4,5,7,8
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\n\nThe drawings leave out what the sources do not describe. The 1887 manual gives no dimensions, Goodrich’s patent gives no temperatures or times, and the museum text on the vacuum brewer names no filter.4,7,8\n\n## Documented, claimed and retold\n\nMany popular dates for brewing devices could not be traced to a primary record. Coffearium sorts them as in Coffeehouses from Mecca to Europe. **Documented** means a patent, an official register or a dated text: the percolators of 1865 and 1889, the paper filter of 1908, the plunger pot of 1928–1931 and the Chemex of 1938–1941.6,7,10,11,12 **Claimed** means a date given by one secondary account, such as the museum dates for the vacuum brewer.8,9 **Retold** means stories repeated without any source consulted for this entry.\n\nSeveral well-known firsts fall in the last group. Accounts of an early Paris percolator, of a 19th-century French plunger patent and of a later plunger redesign could not be checked against a patent record or a historian’s text consulted for this entry. They are therefore not dated here. The same applies to Count Rumford’s essay on coffee, whose text was not consulted for this entry. No source consulted explains who or what the biggin is named after.\n\nPatents also show their limits. A patent date marks when an idea was registered, not when people first brewed that way. Nason’s patent of 1865 already calls itself a percolator, so the word and the method are older than Goodrich’s design.6,7 The Melitta filter of 1908 refined filtering through cloth and strainers, which the 1887 manual already describes.4,10\n\n## Open questions\n\n- **The first vacuum brewer.** Two museums credit Nörrenberg (1823), Boulanger (patent application, 1835) or Napier (1840); no primary record was consulted.8,9\n- **French percolators and drip pots.** The early 19th-century French patents often cited for the drip pot and the percolator were not consulted.\n- **Earlier plunger designs.** The 1928 Italian priority is the earliest plunger patent consulted; French designs of the 19th century are claimed but were not checked.11\n- **How percolators extracted.** No measurement of extraction in a recirculating percolator was consulted; the over-extraction claim rests on a historian’s account.1\n- **Spread of each method.** No source consulted gives household figures for boiling, drip, percolator or vacuum brewing in any country before 1950.\n\n## Key studies\n\n
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Goodrich, 1889 – Coffee-pot (US 408,707). The patent for the stove-top percolator. Water heated under a base plate rises through a central tube, spreads over coffee in a perforated cup and percolates back down, in continuous circulation.

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United States Patent Office, granted 13 Aug 1889 · US 408,707

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Paolini, 1931 – Apparatus for preparing infusions (US 1,797,672). An Italian design for a plunger pot, assigned to Calimani and Moneta. A tight-fitting filter slides down a rod and traps the grounds at the bottom of the vessel.

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United States Patent Office, Italian priority 2 Apr 1928, granted 24 Mar 1931 · US 1,797,672

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Schlumbohm, 1941 – Filtering device (US 2,241,368). The patent for the Chemex. A one-piece funnel and flask holds a paper filter; a groove serves as spout and as an air passage for the air the brew displaces.

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United States Patent Office, German priority 13 Apr 1938, granted 6 May 1941 · US 2,241,368

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Orrje et al., 2025 – Cafestol and kahweol by brew method. Measures coffee diterpenes in workplace machine coffee and home brews in Sweden. Boiled coffee was highest; pouring it through a fabric filter removed most of the diterpenes, and paper-filtered coffee was low.

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Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases 35, 103933 · doi:10.1016/j.numecd.2025.103933

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Morris, 2017 – We consumers: tastes, rituals and waves. A historian follows coffee drinking from boiled husks in Yemen to American percolators and the third wave. He links percolators and low brew ratios to the thin American cup of the mid-20th century.

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In: Folmer (ed.), The Craft and Science of Coffee, ch. 19 · doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-803520-7.00019-0

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