1879—C.F. Hargreaves, Rio de Janeiro, is granted an English patent on machinery for hulling, polishing, and separating coffee.
1879—Charles Halstead, New York, is the first to bring out a metal coffee pot with a china interior.
1879–80—Orson W. Stowe, of the Peck, Stowe & Wilcox Co., Southington, Conn., is granted United States patents on an improved coffee and spice mill.
1880—Great failures in the American coffee trade as a result of syndicate planting and buying of coffees in Brazil, Mexico, and Central America.
1880—Coffee pots with tops, having muslin bottoms for clarifying and straining, are first made by Duparquet, Huot & Moneuse Co. in the United States.
1880—Peter Pearson, Manchester, Eng., is granted a patent in England on a coffee roaster wherein gas is substituted for coke as fuel.
1880—Henry E. Smyser, Philadelphia, is granted a United States patent on a package-making-and-filling machine, forerunner of the weighing-and-packing machine, the control of which by John Arbuckle led to the coffee-sugar war with the Havemeyers.
1880—Fancy paper bags for coffee are first used in Germany.
1880–81—G.W. and G.S. Hungerford are granted United States patents on machines for cleaning, scouring, and polishing coffee.
1880–81—The first big coffee-trade combination in North America, known as the "trinity" (O.G. Kimball, B.G. Arnold and Bowie Dash, all of New York), has a sensational collapse, its failure being the result of syndicate planting and buying of coffees in Brazil, Mexico, and Central America.