About this time (1840), Robert Napier (1791–1876) the Scottish marine engineer, of the celebrated Clyde shipbuilding firm of Robert Napier & Sons, invented a vacuum coffee machine to make coffee by distillation and filtration. The device was never patented; but thirty years later, it was being made in the works of Thomas Smith & Son (Elkington & Co., Ltd., successors) under the direction of Mr. Napier, the aged inventor. The device consists of a silver globe, brewer syphon, and strainer, as illustrated. It operates as follows: a half-cupful of water is put into the globe, and the gas flame is lighted. The dry coffee is put into the receiver, which is then filled up with boiling water. This will at once become agitated, and will continue so for a few minutes. When it becomes still, the gas flame is turned down, and clear coffee is syphoned over into the globe through the syphon tube, on the end of which, as it rests in the coffee liquid, there is a metal strainer covered with a filter cloth.

Napier Vacuum Coffee Maker Napier-List Steam Coffee Machine

The Napierian coffee machine has enjoyed great popularity in England. The principle has in later years been incorporated in the Napier-List steam coffee machine for use in hotels, ships, restaurants, etc. Steam is used as a source of heat, but does not mix with the coffee. List's patent is for an improvement on the Napierian system and was granted in 1891.

It is related that shortly before he died, old Mr. Napier, at the termination of a dispute in Smith & Co.'s factory at Glasgow, where the device was being made under his instruction, said to old Mr. Smith:

"You may be a guid silversmith, but I am a better engineer."


Showing Method of Operation

Finley Acker's Filter-Paper Coffee Pot

In 1841, William Ward Andrews was granted an English patent on an improved pot employing a pump to force the boiling water through the ground coffee while contained in a perforated cylinder screwed to the bottom of the pot.

In 1842, the first French patent on a glass coffee-making device was granted to Madame Vassieux of Lyons.

Following this, there were numerous patents issued in France and England on double glass-globe coffee-making devices. They were first known as double glass balloons, and most of them employed metal strainers.