Coffee review

Permanent exhibits from the New York Hyundai gallery collection! Legendary CHEMEX hand coffee filter pot

Published: 2025-08-21 Author: World Gafei
Last Updated: 2025/08/21, Communication of professional baristas Please follow the coffee workshop (official Wechat account cafe_style) whether you are just a light coffee fan with a cup of coffee in the morning every day, or a coffee worker who is planning to open a coffee shop with hand-brewed coffee as the selling point, the Guide to the brief History, brewing and maintenance of Household Coffee utensils introduces 11 kinds of coffee utensils that are the most popular in the world and recognized by coffee fans.

For professional baristas, please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

Whether you are just a light coffee fan with a cup of coffee in the morning every day, or a coffee professional who is planning to open a coffee shop with hand-brewed coffee as the selling point, the Guide to the brief History, brewing and maintenance of Household Coffee utensils introduces 11 of the most popular coffee utensils in the world and recognized by coffee fans as their favorite coffee utensils, including not only the history of the appliances, interesting stories, how to use them, purchase and storage It also covers the inventors of the apparatus, expert interviews, practical use evaluation, etc., so that readers can also learn to extract professional-grade coffee.

CHEMEX hand filter pot

History of CHEMEX

CHEMEX was designed and invented by Dr. Peter J. Schlumbohm, a German chemist and inventor in 1941. Schlumbohm graduated from Staatliches Bauhaus School of Design and Architecture in Germany. Influenced by the Bauhaus Movement, which emphasized functionalism in the early 19th century, CHEMEX was designed. He, who usually loves coffee, wants to use scientific principles and laboratory tools to design a household coffee appliance, so he successfully designed the CHEMEX based on the triangular flask that is common in the laboratory. Schlumbohm, who emigrated to the United States in 1935, founded CHEMEX (Chemex corporation) in New York in 1939. After applying for a patent in 1941, he began marketing with the slogan "extract coffee in the way of a chemist". Later, CHEMEX began to go into mass production during World War II, whether it was beautiful shape or coffee taste, and instantly captured the hearts of Americans.

CHEMEX short story

Unsung hero ─ filter paper

A piece of filter paper for CHEMEX is about 3.50 yuan, which is much more expensive than other filter paper. Therefore, many people think that the disadvantage of CHEMEX is that filter paper is too expensive. However, CHEMEX filter paper has its expensive reason, because it contains cereal ingredients, so it is about 20% thicker than other filter paper. The thicker filter paper can filter out the smelly ingredients when extracting coffee, so CHEMEX is often proud that the coffee extracted with its own utensils is more balanced and cleaner than that extracted with other utensils. And no matter how much water is, you can always extract the same amount of coffee at the same time, even if you don't have excellent hand brewing skills, anyone can extract delicious coffee.

A good friend of the Group of six.

In the American TV series friends, which is often used by Chinese to practice spoken English, CHEMEX can be seen from time to time. In the first episode of season 1, Rachel said, "this is my first hand-made coffee," while serving breakfast coffee for Joey and Chandler. The appliance Rachel uses here is the CHEMEX. Although CHEMEX is supposed to make delicious coffee no matter who uses it, Joey and Chandler both secretly spit it into the flowerpot under the table after taking a sip of coffee. CHEMEX is often seen in Monica's kitchen from the beginning of this episode to the end of the third season. It wasn't until the third season that CHEMEX gave up the throne to an electric coffee maker.

One thing is worth ten thousand gold!

Dr. Schlumbohm, who invented CHEMEX, is actually no less than Edison's inventor king. By the time he died in 1962, he had invented and patented more than 3,000 products. But among so many patented inventions, only one product, CHEMEX, has been successfully sold. However, such a product is deeply loved by coffee lovers all over the world, including the third wave of famous boutique coffee shops such as Intelligentsia and Stumptown. When you think of Dr. Schlumbohm's international fame for this coffee utensil, it can be said that his life-long invention has finally come to fruition.

The counterattack of the empire

If Xiaomi has made brilliant achievements in the mobile phone market by imitating Apple's i-Phone, then in the coffee industry, the Chinese operator "Diguo" has also launched a copycat version of the integrated hand filter pot that is almost exactly the same as CHEMEX. Because the brand is "Empire", it is also known as "Imperial CHEMEX". What is different from the existing CHEMEX is that the outer wall of the flask is engraved with a capacity mark, which at first glance will be thought to be an upgraded version of CHEMEX. The price is even half that of CHEMEX, and it is compatible with CHEMEX special filter paper and metal filter, and its practicability is well received.

A highly recognized design

Seeing the graceful curve of CHEMEX, one can't help thinking of early Coca-Cola bottles. In fact, in the evaluation of CHEMEX buyers, many people buy not only because of the pure and balanced taste of coffee, but also because of its elegant shape. CHEMEX's beautiful design has been recognized all over the world, including New York Modern gallery, Smithsonian Nature Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art and other places as permanent exhibits, and it is also one of the 100 choices of modern design selected by Illinois Institute of Technology.

This article comes from the brief History, brewing and maintenance Guide of Household Coffee utensils published by Le Culture.

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