Chemex - A Coffee Maker for the Geeky

A couple of weeks ago, my trusty coffee maker, a Black and Decker I got just before my freshman year in college, kicked the bucket. Judson's (which was a similar age) had broken a couple of months before that. So we spent a couple of weeks making the occasional pot with the French Press and drinking the coffee we have available at work while researching replacements.

Eventually, we opted on the Chemex, a coffee maker that appears to be a favorite of coffee geeks everywhere.

Behold, the Chemex:

Yes, it looks like it's from the 70s, but the Chemex is much older. It was invented in 1941. The Chemex website has a nice write-up of the development of the Chemex device.

So why would we be so excited about an hourglass-shaped glass vessel with a weird wooden handle that requires special filters?

Because the coffee it brews is awesome.

It's a labor-intensive process, to be sure. Boil water. Wait for it to cool down a bit. Pour in just enough to wet the grounds, but not enough to let them float. Slowly add water and wait for it to transform into coffee over the course of the next five minutes or so. Discard filter. Profit. Basically, it's a manual, unheated version of the standard automatic drip filter.

But this is no ordinary coffee maker! It was developed by a chemist. The Chemex is a favorite of coffee geeks and baristas everywhere (just ask coffeegeek.com or the sites of your favorite baristas). It has won numerous design awards. It is in the permanent collections at MoMA and at the Corning Museum of Glass.

So if you're patient (it really doesn't take much longer than any other coffee maker, but you have to do more babysitting) and are in the market for a new coffee maker, keep the Chemex in mind. It'll give you the best coffee you've ever tasted for a $35 (or less) device.

On a related note, I found a very entertaining web site about coffee here: A Trip Inside Your Coffee Pot.