Drip coffee

Commercial paper coffee filters were invented in Germany by Melitta Bentz in 1908 and are commonly used for drip brew all over the world. In 1944, Willy Brand developed an automatic drip-brewer utilizing circular paper filters in Switzerland. In 1954, one of the first electric drip brewers, the Wigomat invented by Gottlob Widmann, was patented in Germany. Drip brew coffee makers largely replaced the coffee percolator (a device combining boiling, drip-brewing and steeping) in the 1970s due to the percolator's tendency to over-extract coffee, thereby making it bitter. One benefit of paper filters is that the used grounds and the filter may be disposed together, without a need to clean the filter. Permanent filters are also common, made of thin perforated metal sheets, fine plastic mesh, porous ceramics or glazed porcelain sieves that restrain the grounds but allow the coffee to pass, thus eliminating the need to have to purchase separate filters which sometimes cannot be found in some parts of the world. These add to the maintenance of the machine but reduce overall cost and produce less waste. == Characteristics ==

Brewing with a paper filter produces clear, light-bodied coffee. While free of sediments, such coffee is lacking in some of coffee's oils and essences; they have been trapped in the paper filter. Metal, nylon or porcelain mesh filters do not normally remove these components. It may be observed, especially when using a tall, narrow carafe, that the coffee at the bottom of the coffeepot is stronger than that at the top. This is because less flavor is available for extraction from the coffee grounds as the brewing process progresses. A mathematical argument has been made that delivering comparable strength in two cups of coffee is nearly achieved using a Thue–Morse sequence of pours. == Cultural impact ==

Filter coffee is central to Japanese coffee culture and connoisseurship. In South India, filter coffee brewed at home is known as Kaapi and is a part of local culture. Most houses have a stainless-steel coffee filter and most shops sell freshly roasted and ground coffee beans. Some popular filter coffee brands include Mysore café, Hill coffee (Suresh healthcare), Cothas Coffee (Bangalore) and Narasu's Coffee (Salem). It is common in South India and Louisiana to add chicory to coffee to give it a unique taste and flavour. ==Methods==

There are a number of methods and pieces of equipment for making drip-brewed coffee. Manual pour-over coffee preparation Pour-over methods are popular ways of making specialty drip coffee. The method involves pouring water over a bed of coffee (sometimes also called cake) in a filter-lined conical, trapezoid, or cylindrical chamber typically consisting of a filter and a suitable filter holder. The filtering can be with paper, cloth, plastic, ceramics, or metal. Cafetière du Belloy and similar coffee makers Manual drip coffee makers include the so-called French drip coffee pot (invented in 1795 by François-Antoine-Henri Descroizilles and manufactured by a metal-smith in Rouen, Flip coffee pots A less familiar form of drip brewing is the reversible or "flip" pot commonly known as Napoletana (1819) and late-19th century variants like the Russian reversible pot aka Russian egg, the reversible Potsdam cafetière aka Potsdam boiler, or the (c. 1920). Karlsbad-style coffee makers A variant of the category of French drip coffee pots is the group of "Bohemian" coffee pots including the original Karlsbad coffee makers, historically produced by several mostly Bohemian porcelain manufacturers since 1878 up into the first half of the 20th century, and variants produced by Siegmund Paul Meyer (SPM) / Walküre since 1910, Friesland (FPM). In contrast to French drip coffee pots which feature round holes, they all use a special double-layered cross-slit strainer made from through-glazed porcelain. Before World War I, they were very popular in the Viennese coffee house culture. The special kind of drip coffee they produce is called a ("Karlsbad coffee"). System Büttner coffee makers System Büttner coffee makers are a type of coffee makers featuring a special permanent through-glazed porcelain filter with triangularly-arranged slits and a valving mechanism to combine steeping with drip-brewing. They were invented in 1926 by the coffee roaster Carl A. Büttner (Berlin, Germany) and produced up into, at least, the 1940s by the porcelain manufacturer (Weiden, Germany) for various German coffee roasters and distributors. Automatic drip-coffee makers drip coffee maker takes around four minutes. Electric drip-coffee makers One of the first electrical drip coffee makers was the German Wigomat, patented in 1954. In the early 1970s electrical drip coffee makers became more common, causing a decline in manual drip coffee preparation methods until the 2010s, and the near-extinction of coffee percolators. Among the early electrical drip coffee machines was a machine designed by two former Westinghouse engineers and sold under the brand Mr. Coffee in the early 1970s. It normally works by admitting water from a cold-water reservoir into a flexible hose in the base of the reservoir leading directly to a thin metal tube or heating chamber (usually, of aluminium), where a heating element surrounding the metal tube heats the water. The heated water moves through the machine using the thermosiphon principle. Thermally induced pressure and the siphoning effect move the heated water through an insulated rubber or vinyl riser hose, into a spray head, and onto the ground coffee, which is contained in a brew basket mounted below the spray head. The coffee passes through a filter and drips down into the carafe. A one-way valve in the tubing prevents water from siphoning back into the reservoir. The carafe, usually made of glass, rests on a warming plate that keeps the brewed coffee warm. A thermostat attached to the heating element turns off the heating element as needed to prevent overheating the water in the metal tube (overheating would produce only steam in the supply hose), then turns back on when the water cools below a certain threshold. For a standard 10- to 12-cup drip coffeemaker, using a more powerful thermostatically controlled heating element (in terms of wattage produced), can heat increased amounts of water more quickly using larger heating chambers, generally producing higher average water temperatures at the spray head over the entire brewing cycle. This process can be further improved by changing the aluminium construction of most heating chambers to a metal with superior heat transfer qualities, such as copper. Throughout the latter part of the 20th century, a number of inventors patented various coffeemaker designs using an automated form of the drip brew method. Subsequent designs have featured changes in heating elements, spray head, and brew-basket design, as well as the addition of timers and clocks for automatic-start, water filtration, filter and carafe design, drip stop, and even built-in coffee grinding mechanisms. == See also ==