French Press Coffee Maker

The French press coffee maker or Coffee Press was invented in France somewhere around the mid 1800 by a Frenchman. As the story goes this Frenchman boiled the water alone, having forgotten to add the coffee.  Not wanting to start over he or waste water resources he put ground coffee in a jar and poured the boiling water over it and the coffee floated to the top as it was brewing.  Trying to remedy the situation fitted a piece of screen, which he used to press the coffee grounds to the bottom of the jar.  Having success with this he tasted the coffee and discovered it was a lot better than boiling the coffee and water together.  Thus the French press coffee maker was born.

The French press coffee maker as we know it today is actually attributed  to an Italian named Calimani who in the mid 1930’s took a press coffee a step further by using a metal body with a metal filter used to press the ground coffee to the bottom of the maker.

Later as models with glass bodies and plastic and metal mesh filters became popular, the technology to make a tight enough fitting filter created problems. Even the first models were met with limited success.

By the early 1900s, the French press coffee maker, was starting to become more popular and was showing up on grocery store shelves.   Bodum a Danish company specializing in  Kitchen products is probably most responsible for the common day occurrence and popularity of the French press coffee maker that any other company.

In the seventies, they introduced plastic, and metal and glass press makers.  In the 1980s, fueled by their profits, they bought lines like Chambord and brought out more classical-look press pots. The rest is, as they say, history.