Patent Drawings of Early French Coffee Makers
Left, drip pot of 1806—Next two, Durant's inner-tube pot, 1827—Next (fourth), Gandais' first practicable percolator, 1827—Right, Grandin & Crepeaux' percolator, 1832
In 1815, Archibald Kenrich was granted a patent in England on "mills for grinding coffee."
The coffee biggin, said to have been invented by a Mr. Biggin, came into common use in England for making coffee about 1817. It was usually an earthenware pot. At first it had in the upper part a metal strainer like the French drip pots. Suspended from the rim in later models there was a flannel or muslin bag to hold the ground coffee, through which the boiling water was poured, the bag serving as a filter. The idea was an adaptation of the French fustian infusion bag of 1711, and of other early French drip and filtration devices, and it attained great popularity. Any coffee pot with such a bag fitted into its mouth came to be spoken of as a coffee biggin. Later, there was evolved the metal pot with a wire strainer substituted for the cloth bag. The coffee biggin still retains its popularity in England.
Early French Filtration Devices
Left, Casseneuve's filter-paper machine, 1824—Center, Gaudet's cloth-filter pot, 1820—Right, Raparlier's percolator
While French inventors were busy with coffee makers, English and American inventors were studying means to improve the roasting of the beans. Peregrine Williamson, of Baltimore, was granted the first patent in the United States for an improvement on a coffee roaster in 1820. In 1824, Richard Evans was granted a patent in England for a commercial method of roasting coffee, comprising a cylindrical sheet-iron roaster fitted with improved flanges for mixing; a hollow tube and trier for sampling coffee while roasting; and a means for turning the roaster completely over to empty it.
The next year, 1825, the first coffee-pot patent in the United States was granted to Lewis Martelley of New York. It marked the first American attempt to perfect an arrangement to condense the steam and the essential oils and to return them to the infusion. In 1838, Antoni Bencini, of Milton, N.C., was granted a similar patent in the United States. Rowland, in 1844, and Waite and Sener, in their Old Dominion pot of 1856, tried for the same result, namely, the condensation of the steam in upper chambers.
