Pour-over

On 20 June 1908 Melitta Bentz, a housewife in Dresden, registered a coffee filter with the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin: a cup with a domed underside and angled holes, lined with paper. Until then, the German Patent and Trade Mark Office notes, coffee was usually made by letting the grounds settle in the pot or by sieving them, which left grit and an unpleasant aftertaste in the cup.

Source: Melitta Bentz´ coffee filters, German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA)

The Chemex, designed in 1941 by the chemist Peter Schlumbohm, borrowed the same idea from the laboratory: a glass flask with a paper filter in its neck. The Denver Art Museum holds one in its collection.

Source: Chemex Coffee Maker, 1941, Denver Art Museum

The filter is the difference. In a French press the grounds steep in the water and a metal mesh holds them back, so fine particles and coffee oils reach the cup. A paper filter catches both. Harvard’s Nutrition Source notes that filtered coffee contains almost none of the diterpenes, found in unfiltered coffee, that can raise LDL cholesterol.

Source: Coffee, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, The Nutrition Source

Usually one cup brewed to order by pouring, often from a coffee you choose on the menu. It takes a few minutes longer than an espresso drink, and it is the plainest way to taste what a particular coffee is like.