American coffee machine

When George Bunn founded Bunn-O-Magic in 1957, he probably wouldn't have thought that the American coffee machine he invented a few years later would be a great success.

Bunn successfully developed the first commercial American coffee machine in 1963 and entered the home market in 1967 after "slimming down". The following is an advertisement published at that time, you can see the appearance of the first-generation American coffee machine, which is no different from the common machines in appearance and production methods.

Bunn's advertisement Like Magic

The steps of using the machine, pay attention to the use of filter paper

Just a few simple steps, add filter paper, coffee powder, then add water to the water tank, press the switch, almost immediately, and the hot coffee will automatically filter out, just like the slogan "Like Magic!".

The whole production is to simulate the process of hand filtering, so it is also called automatic drip filter coffee machine. However, it is not so easy to fully simulate a simple and perfect hand brewing coffee.

American coffee machines are mostly single-hole effluent and injected into the middle of the coffee powder store. as a result, the coffee powder in the middle is overextracted and the surrounding coffee powder is underextracted. Although, some improved machines have changed the outlet hole into a porous head, so that the water can be evenly covered to the surface of the powder cartridge. For example, Bunn's machine may carry their patented sprinkler (Sprayhead). But most cheap American coffee machines don't do that.

Sprayhead of Bunn, with 6 holes

More importantly, the American coffee machine lacks the step of steaming. Without steaming, the coffee made at the beginning is not extracted enough and the taste will be very light. One solution is to add filter paper to slow down the extraction so that the initial coffee is in contact with water for more time, so it can be slightly thicker.

There are even more persistent practices, such as soaking the coffee powder in the powder bin with hot water for half a minute in advance, and then starting the machine to work, all of which makes the American coffee maker more troublesome to use.

Well, the real question is that machines designed for "lazy people" are likely to be popular because they give people time, so is it worth the trouble? We might as well just use manual filtering. If that's the case, I support it. After all, why does everything have to be so fast and easy? Will you still miss the five or six minutes of manual coffee filtering and concentration?