There are probably as many ways to make coffee as there are drinkers of joe. People are justly passionate about how their morning cup is made and I’m no different. Despite all the fads from Mr. Coffee to the French press, I’ve stuck with the simple elegance of a Chemex for over thirty years despite relentless teasing and charges of fogyism from my children.
I’ve always defended my hourglass-shaped coffee maker of glass with its wooden collar and leather tie as the essence of practical beauty, of form married to function. Until recently the kids were unimpressed, perhaps thinking the ideal coffee maker not only grinds beans and brews on a timer with an alarm clock, but pours it into a cup and then brushes their teeth afterward. A new discovery, however, has led to a change of heart.
The Chemex was invented in 1941 by chemist Peter J. Schlumbohm, a German immigrant to the United States. An inventor of thousands of things, the coffee maker has proved the most enduring. The Chemex looks like a modified Erlenmeyer flask with a funnel on top. It reminds me of the laboratory apparatus that fascinated me in school.
Not long ago, my son and I visited the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven where we wandered through rooms filled with fabulous paintings, sculpture, photographs, drawings, jewelry, pottery, and
The Chemex website touts “a perfect cup of coffee every time” because their special, thicker bonded filters and brewing method of “fractional extraction at 190-200 Fahrenheit leaves the coffee fats and bitter elements in the coffee grounds, not in your cup.” I don’t claim to
I never expect to own a Van Gogh or Jackson Pollack painting, but I nevertheless possess an object worthy of a world class art museum. It’s got grace, delicacy, and proportion hidden in plain view in my kitchen, and it lifts my spirits daily. Not only is there an art to brewing coffee, but coffee can be brewed in a work of art.
