Who Invented the First Coffee Maker?

Whether you call it "Java," "Joe," "Mud," or "Bean Juice," coffee is a wildly popular--and incredibly profitable--beverage that can be prepared a number of different ways. Coffee makers are the much-depended upon, yet largely overlooked, component of America's coffee obsession. Coffee making is as old as coffee use, but coffee makers are fairly recent inventions.

History

Coffee was discovered in Ethiopia by Arab traders. The story says that a goat herder noticed his goats acted strangely after eating the berries of a certain plant. Taking these berries to a sheikh, the herder and the sheikh examined them and even ate them, but spat them out as too bitter. Tossing the berries into the fire in disgust, the sheikh and herder were pleased by the aroma that emanated by the cooking beans. Placing the now-cooked beans into hot water, the sheikh and herder allegedly created the first cup of coffee in the 5th or 6th century BCE. Since then, coffee became a staple of Arab and Middle Eastern culture.

Time Frame

In 1865, coffee percolators appeared in Europe and America thanks to inventor James Mason. Percolators were based on the principle that heated water expands and can be directed. Water is placed in a reservoir in the bottom of a percolator, with coffee grounds in a porous basket at the top with a metal tube that extends almost to the bottom of the reservoir. The percolator was then placed near heat where the boiling water moved up the tube, splashed over the beans and created coffee.

Function

Coffee had long been boiled together with water, but it left grounds in the cup when drinking. In response to this problem, French inventor Louis-Bernanrd Rabaud came up with a cotton-based filter that allowed water to pass through, but left the grounds behind in the filter. The filter was still placed in the middle of the brewing process, and formed the forerunner of modern filters, though many later filters were made out of paper instead of cotton.

Types

Paper filters were added to percolators in the 20th century, about the same time that percolators became electric. The addition of filters to percolator coffee reduced the amount of grinds in the coffee cup dramatically, and electric percolators were marketed as modern. Westinghouse, General Electric and other industry giants all debuted electric percolators by the 1920s, and though there are no records of who truly "invented" the plug-in percolator, each company claimed to have the first electric percolator.

Geography

By 1972, the corporation Mr. Coffee had debuted and melded many of the previous coffee-making technological advances. This new kind of coffee maker eliminated one of the sins percolators had long been committing: rebrewing coffee. Based on the principles that had worked so well for percolators, automatic drip coffee makers heated water through an electric element, passed it up a metal tube, into a separate basket that held grinds in a paper filter, and into a glass coffee pot that rested on a heating element to keep the beverage warm. This prevented brewed coffee from being passed over the grinds and resulted in better-tasting coffee. Mr. Coffee enlisted the help of baseball legend Joe DiMaggio in promoting its product on television.

Considerations

Espresso, cappuccino and other coffee drinks are made using similar processes as the percolator, drip or French Press methods. For instance, espresso uses hot water that is pressurized and passed through a densely packed basket of coffee grounds. This process creates a highly-concentrated coffee drink, but it still based on the basic technology of a drip coffee maker. Espresso makers were invented by Italian inventor Achilles Gaggia in 1946 based on earlier, less effective espresso machines which dated back to the early 19th century. Gaggia used mechanical pumps, springs and levers to improve pressure and produce a more consistent cup of espresso.

Resources

• Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast