The history of Coffee Makers

An insight into the history of coffee making

In 1685 in France, as far back as the reign of Louis XV the first coffee pot for making coffee came about. It was an ordinary pitcher at the bottom of which there was a plate. An ordinary spirit lamp was used to heat it up. Then in 1800 that coffee maker was replaced by a percolator created by Archbishop Jean-Baptiste de Belloy. That was a coffee pot in the upper part of which a flask with perforated walls and filled with ground coffee was placed. Coffee dissolved with hot water was dripping down through the holes inside the pot.

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A few years later, the American Benjamin Thompson invented the Rumford's coffee percolator, a coffee maker enjoying great success.

In 1820 a coffee hood, the predecessor of the coffee filter was gaining in popularity in England. The appliance was like our today’s tea bags, where ground coffee is poured into a pocket of voile or flannel and fixed along the edge of mug. The pocket could spend enough time in hot water which markedly increased the coffee’s solubility.

In 1827 the Parisian jeweler Jacques Augustin Gandhi invented a hot spring coffee machine. Hot water was repeatedly raised through the tube inserted into the handle, sprayed over the ground coffee, passed through it and turned to a drink. Shortly after, another French inventor, Nicolas Felix Duran improved the Gandhi’s coffee maker so that hot water was rising through the central tube and was then repeatedly sprayed over the coffee powder.

The first steam-based coffee machine was designed by Edward Loysel de Santais. In 1855 he demonstrated it at a fair in Paris. The coffeemaker showed great performances, 2,000 cups of coffee per hour. But the unit was too heavy, cumbersome and complicated. In 1901, the Milanese inventor Luigi Bezzera patented his steam pressure coffee maker designated for bars. It was possible to produce a freshly made drink right in front of the customer. It is believed that the contemporary espresso machines originate from this one.

The electrical coffee makers were first introduced by the ‘Universal’ company in the U.S. in 1908. They were non-automatic, and had to follow closely the coffee making process to timely turn off the machine. The idea behind good coffee lies in not boiling it but only bringing to a boil as boiling destroys the super flavour of coffee, and this also applies to instant coffee.

A variety of existing models

Contemporary coffee makers vary in the way how coffee is made. They are divided mainly in the drip and espresso types. There are coffee machines which combines both dripping and steam pressure. A drink made of the same sort of coffee in coffee machines of different types may have a different taste and aroma.

In terms of the mode of functioning, the drip coffeemakers are close to the electric coffee makers in first half of the twentieth century. They have two containers, one for cold water and the other one for the ready coffee. When you turn on a coffee maker, cold water goes from the container into a custom capillary tube, heats up, boils and rises up in the form of steam. When the steam reaches the top of the capillary, it gets condensed. Water at 95°C, drop by drop, flows into the filter through the ground coffee absorbing its flavour and aroma and flows directly into the pot.

The size of a pot depends on the capacity of the coffee maker; it can be suitable for 4-18 cups of 125 ml.

True coffee connoisseurs prefer espresso machines. The Italian word ‘espresso’ means that a small portion of coffee is prepared specifically for one person and not a whole pot. Espresso machines are invented by the Italians. The first espresso machines had been around since the early twentieth century but only in the 1950’s they underwent some improvements and took the present shape.

The espresso machines are far more complicated than drip makers. High technologies are applied to produce them, and this greatly increases the cost. Superheated steam passes under high pressure through the ground coffee resulting in a fragrant and strong drink. It is worth noting that these espresso machines require much less grain than drip coffee makers. If you are a fan of cappuccino, then some dense froth of the pre-heated milk can be added to coffee using a custom built-in device.

The futurist vision

A future coffee machine is developed by the Swiss designer Carlo Borer. Saeco Etienne Louis looks both futuristic and elegant. Of course the way it looks is far from the common shape of a coffee machine.

The French designers Brice Gender and Hanika Perez of the University of Toulouse Le Mirail proposed to use a kind of coffee making art on the wall. The idea of the Untitled Coffee Machine is very simple.

When steam starts to get out of the coffee machine, there is an image one the screen. This is due to the coffee maker’s temperature sensitivity. If you do not like to hang a picture on the wall, there can be a coffee maker instead. It will give you joy by displaying new images every time you prepare some coffee. The project was presented at the Nespresso contest in 2008 and received the highest award. No wonder! This coffee maker is so different from a lot of other models.

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