The Coffee Filter

Who knew that brewing your morning cup of joe could be so interesting? When you get up in the morning and rub the sleep out of your eyes as you’re putting the filter in your coffee machine, you probably don’t think about where this little paper cone came from. There is very interesting history of the coffee filter, both metal and paper and why it came about in the first place!

The coffee filter’s amusing history begins in the 1700’s when someone who was fed up with the sight of dirty looking coffee grounds in the bottom of his cup filled his sock with the grounds and poured hot water into it. He then drank the liquid that filtered out, and the idea for the coffee that we indulge in every day was born! After the sock, metal coffee filters that are becoming more and more popular now were first created around the early 1800s. Even at that time they were smash hits and sold like hot cakes. The principle was very simple: Fix a flat piece made of metal with very small pin holes on the opening of a kettle, scoop the coffee grounds onto the plate and then spread hot water over the grounds, and serve. Nowadays, these filters are attached to electric automatic brewing coffee pots and are in almost every home around America and Canada.

The now widely used paper filters came to be known, specifically in the year 1908. A German – Melitta Bentz – found the taste of coffee too bitter and the sight of soaked coffee grounds all over the inside of her coffee cup too messy. She desperately wanted to filter out the grounds from the liquid, so she used her son’s porous blotter paper to filter them out. And, thus, the paper coffee filter came about.

As you’ve seen, coffee filters can be made with different materials. Paper filters work on the Japanese concept of use once and discard, but poor quality filters can sometimes be messy and cumbersome to use. Gold filters – yes, you read that right – last for a long time but aren’t very practical for the average coffee consumer. Cloth filters, much like the inventors’ sock are available too and they are considered “green” or environmentally friendly, but they too can often be a bit messy. The traditional metal strainer type of filters is used most commonly in making coffee. They last a long time and have gained wide acceptance.

So, the question to be asked is whether you would prefer coffee made by the traditional metal filter method or some of the other techniques discussed. The answer lies with in your daily routine and of course your budget.

How Espresso Coffee Makers Work!

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