History · brewing devices

Coffee brewing devices: a dated timeline from the percolator to the AeroPress

Most home brewers in use today trace back to a short list of years: a stovetop percolator patent in 1889, the Moka Express in 1933, the Chemex patent in 1941, the Hario V60 in 2004 and the AeroPress in 2005. This page sets those dates against the patent records, museum entries and company histories behind them, and shows where those records give different years or names.

Updated 2026-10-28 · sources listed at the end · brand names appear only where the history requires them

Percolators: Paris, Massachusetts and Illinois

Wikipedia's percolator article credits a Paris tinsmith, Joseph-Henry-Marie Laurens, with the first modern percolator in 1819, with a rising tube that cycled boiling water. Earlier, Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford) had written an essay "Of the Excellent Qualities of Coffee" describing several percolation designs.

In the United States, James H. Nason of Franklin, Massachusetts, was granted patent 51,741 for a "Coffee-Percolator" on 26 December 1865. Its text describes water passing once down through the coffee, not the recirculation now called percolation. The design Wikipedia calls the modern US stovetop percolator is Hanson Goodrich's patent 408,707, granted on 13 August 1889: an insert for an ordinary coffee pot, with a base plate, a tube rising to a perforated cup for the grounds and a removable straining cloth. As the pot heats, water rises through the tube, spills over the coffee and percolates back down in continuous circulation.

Wikipedia cites a 1905 General Electric pamphlet, "Coffee Making By Electricity." The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History holds an electric coffee urn with an aluminium percolator, dated about 1928–1939 and marked with a patent date of 12 August 1924, and a 1950s Sunbeam electric percolator with a dial for milder or stronger coffee. Wikipedia dates the percolator's decline to the early 1970s, as instant coffee improved and electric drip machines spread.

Steam pressure: the moka pot

Steam-pressure brewing is older than the moka pot. Wikipedia lists Samuel Parker's British patent of 11 January 1833 for a tabletop machine, later sold as the "Steam Fountain." The moka pot itself is the Moka Express. The Museum of Modern Art dates Alfonso Bialetti's design to 1933 and ties it to the Great Depression, when fewer Italians went to cafés; its label explains that steam pressure forces water from the lower chamber up through the coffee, and that aluminium heats quickly.

Bialetti had set up an aluminium workshop in Crusinallo, near Omegna, in 1919 (Wikipedia; Lombardy heritage inventory). The inventory record says the pot became known internationally after 1947, when his son Renato began exporting it, and dates the moustached mascot to 1952.

The plunger: French press patents

Wikipedia traces the press to an 1852 French patent by Henri-Otto Mayer, a Paris metalsmith, and the merchant Jacques-Victor Delforge — a design with no seal around the filter. Barista Hustle found no evidence that it went into production. A patent by Marcel-Pierre Paquet dit Jolbert was published on 5 August 1924.

The US patent most retellings point to, 1,797,672, names Ugo Paolini of Milan as inventor and assigns it in halves to Attilio Calimani and Giulio Moneta. It claims an Italian filing of 2 April 1928, was filed in the US on 2 April 1929 and was granted on 24 March 1931. It describes a filter that fits snugly in the vessel, moved by a rod through the cover, with a spring around the rod holding it in place by friction. Wikipedia adds that Faliero Bondanini patented his own version in 1958 and had it made by Martin SA in France under the name Melior; that patent record was not located for this page.

Glass and paper: Chemex and V60

Paper filtering at home began with Melitta Bentz's utility model, filed on 20 June 1908 and registered on 8 July 1908 (DPMA); that story has its own page, coffee filter history. Peter Schlumbohm's "Filtering device", US patent 2,241,368, was filed on 13 April 1939, claimed a German application of 13 April 1938 and was granted on 6 May 1941. It joins a filter funnel to an Erlenmeyer-shaped flask, with a groove that lets displaced air escape and doubles as the spout. MoMA holds a 1941 Chemex in borosilicate glass, wood and leather (object 51.1943).

HARIO, founded in 1921 as a maker of scientific glass, released a cone-shaped dripper in 1980 that did not catch on, according to its own history. Its designers returned to the cone and produced the V60, named for its 60° angle, with spiral ribs that leave room for air between paper and wall and one large hole. Hario UK credits the 2010 World Brewers Cup in London with spreading it worldwide.

The AeroPress

Alan Adler, who founded Superflight, Inc. in 1984 to make the Aerobie flying ring, began work on a coffee maker in his Palo Alto garage and went through more than 30 prototypes, by AeroPress, Inc.'s account. The AeroPress was introduced in November 2005 at Coffee Fest in Seattle. His patent application, filed on 18 May 2005 and granted on 14 December 2010 as US 7,849,784, describes an open cylinder with a removable perforated cap and an airtight piston that pushes the brew into a vessel below.

Timeline

Where the sources disagree

• Who invented the percolator. Laurens in 1819 (Wikipedia's percolator article), or Thompson, whom Wikipedia's own Benjamin Thompson article credits with "a percolating coffee pot" and, between about 1810 and 1814, a "coffee drip-press pot." His essay is dated 1812 in one article and February 1813 in the other. Goodrich's 1889 patent is the US stovetop design; Nason's 1865 patent carries the word "Percolator" but describes a single pass of water.
• Who designed the moka pot, and when. MoMA and Wikipedia's moka pot and Bialetti articles give Alfonso Bialetti, 1933. Wikipedia's Alfonso Bialetti article instead says the pot was marketed locally from 1934 to 1940, credits the design in 1937 to Otello Amleto Spadini, and says Bialetti completed the aluminium Moka Express design in 1950.
• Who invented the spring-sealed press. Wikipedia: Moneta and Calimani made it in 1928 and patented it in the US in 1929. The US patent: inventor Ugo Paolini, with Calimani and Moneta as assignees, filed in 1929 and granted in 1931. Barista Hustle: Paolini licensed his design to them, and the spring around the rim with a steel-gauze filter came from Bruno Cassol's 1935 patent; Wikipedia cites a 1929 Italian source crediting Calimani and Moneta with the spring and Cassol with an extra mesh layer.
• What "1941" means for the Chemex. It is the year the US patent was granted; the application dates from 1939 and the German filing from 1938. Chemex says the design was "designed and then patented in 1941."
• The V60's year. 2004 (Hario UK, Wikipedia) or 2005 (HARIO's own origin page).
• The AeroPress's start. AeroPress, Inc. says work began in 2003; Wikipedia says prototyping began in 2004. AeroPress UK's version table starts in October 2005, a month before the November launch the other sources give.

Guides to each device

Brewing guides: moka pot, French press, Chemex, V60, AeroPress, siphon and pour-over; filters: paper vs metal vs cloth.