
Drip coffee is made by pouring hot water onto ground
coffee beans, allowing it to
brew
Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW, also known as Brew MP or Qualcomm BREW) is an obsolete application development platform created by Qualcomm, originally for code division multiple access (CDMA) mobile phones, featuring third-party a ...
while seeping through. There are several methods for doing this, including using a
filter. Terms used for the resulting coffee often reflect the method used, such as drip-brewed coffee, or, somewhat inaccurately, filtered coffee in general. Manually brewed drip coffee is typically referred to as pour-over coffee.
Water seeps through the
ground coffee, absorbing its constituent
chemical compounds
A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) containing atoms from more than one chemical element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element ...
, and then passes through a filter. The
used coffee grounds
Used coffee grounds are the result of brewing coffee, and are the final product after preparation of coffee. Despite having several highly-desirable chemical components, used coffee grounds are generally regarded as waste, and they are usually ...
are retained in the filter, while the brewed coffee is collected in a vessel such as a
carafe
A carafe () is a glass container with a flared lip used for serving liquids, especially wine and coffee. Unlike the related decanter, carafes generally do not include stoppers. Coffee pots included in coffee makers are also referred to as ''c ...
or pot.
History
Commercial
paper coffee filter
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is drained through a fine mesh leaving th ...
s were invented in Germany by
Melitta Bentz
Amalie Auguste Melitta Bentz (née Liebscher, January 31, 1873 – June 29, 1950) was a German inventor and entrepreneur known for revolutionizing the process of coffee brewing with her invention of the coffee filter. Her company, Melitta, ha ...
in 1908
and are commonly used for drip brew all over the world. In 1944, Willy Brand developed an automatic drip-brewer utilizing circular paper filters in Switzerland.
In 1954, one of the first electric drip brewers, the
Wigomat invented by
Gottlob Widmann, was patented in Germany.
Drip brew
coffee makers largely replaced the
coffee percolator
A coffee percolator is a type of pot used for the brewing of coffee by continually cycling the boiling or nearly boiling brew through the grounds (coffee), grounds using gravity until the required strength is reached. The grounds are held in a ...
(a device combining
boiling
Boiling or ebullition is the rapid phase transition from liquid to gas or vapor, vapour; the reverse of boiling is condensation. Boiling occurs when a liquid is heated to its boiling point, so that the vapour pressure of the liquid is equal to ...
, drip-brewing and
steeping
Steeping is the soaking of an organic solid, such as leaves, in a liquid (usually water) to extract flavours or to soften it. The specific process of teas being prepared for drinking by leaving the leaves in heated water to release the flavour ...
) in the 1970s due to the percolator's tendency to over-extract coffee, thereby making it bitter.
One benefit of paper filters is that the used grounds and the filter may be
disposed together, without a need to clean the filter.
Permanent filters are also common, made of thin
perforated
A perforation is a small hole in a thin material or web. There is usually more than one perforation in an organized fashion, where all of the holes collectively are called a ''perforation''. The process of creating perforations is called perfor ...
metal sheets, fine plastic mesh, porous
ceramics
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porce ...
or glazed porcelain sieves that restrain the grounds but allow the coffee to pass, thus eliminating the need to have to purchase separate filters which sometimes cannot be found in some parts of the world. These add to the maintenance of the machine but reduce overall cost and produce less waste.
Characteristics
Brewing with a
paper filter produces clear, light-bodied coffee. While free of sediments, such coffee is lacking in some of coffee's oils and essences; they have been trapped in the paper filter.
Metal, nylon or porcelain mesh filters do not normally remove these components.
It may be observed, especially when using a tall, narrow carafe, that the coffee at the bottom of the coffeepot is stronger than that at the top. This is because less flavor is available for extraction from the coffee grounds as the brewing process progresses. A mathematical argument has been made that delivering comparable strength in two cups of coffee is nearly achieved using a
Thue–Morse sequence
In mathematics, the Thue–Morse or Prouhet–Thue–Morse sequence is the binary sequence (an infinite sequence of 0s and 1s) that can be obtained by starting with 0 and successively appending the Boolean complement of the sequence obtained thus ...
of pours.
Cultural impact

Filter coffee is central to Japanese coffee culture and connoisseurship.
In South India, filter coffee brewed at home is known as ''
Kaapi
Indian filter coffee is a coffee drink made by mixing hot milk and sugar with the infusion obtained by percolation brewing of finely ground coffee powder with chicory in a traditional Indian filter. It has been described as "hot, strong, sweet ...
'' and is a part of local culture. Most houses have a stainless-steel coffee filter and most shops sell freshly roasted and ground coffee beans. Some popular filter coffee brands include Mysore café, Hill coffee (Suresh healthcare), Cothas Coffee (Bangalore) and Narasu's Coffee (Salem). It is common in South India and Louisiana to add
chicory
Common chicory (''Cichorium intybus'') is a somewhat woody, perennial herbaceous plant of the family Asteraceae, usually with bright blue flowers, rarely white or pink. Native to Europe, it has been introduced to the Americas and Australia.
M ...
to coffee to give it a unique taste and flavour.
Methods
There are a number of methods and pieces of equipment for making drip-brewed coffee.
Manual pour-over coffee preparation
Pour-over methods are popular ways of making specialty drip coffee. The method involves pouring water over a bed of coffee (sometimes also called ''cake'') in a filter-lined conical or cylindrical chamber typically consisting of a filter and a suitable
filter holder
Filtration is a physical process that separates solid matter and fluid from a mixture.
Filter, filtering, filters or filtration may also refer to:
Science and technology
Computing
* Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming
* Fil ...
. The filtering can be with paper, cloth, plastic, ceramics, or metal.
The quality of the resulting coffee is extremely dependent on the technique of the user, with pour-over brewing being a popular method used in the
World Brewers Cup
The World Brewers Cup (WBC or WBrC) is an annual international coffee brewing competition organized by World Coffee Events, an organization founded by the Specialty Coffee Association. The stated goal of the competition is to showcase the craft and ...
.
The pour-over coffee preparation method typically starts by pouring a small amount of hot water over the coffee grounds and allow it to sit for about half a minute before continuing the pouring. This pre-wetting, called ''blooming'',
will cause
carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...
to be released in bubbles or foam from the coffee grounds and helps to improve the taste.

There are several manual drip-brewing devices on the market, offering more control over brewing parameters than automatic machines, and which incorporate stopper valves and other innovations that offer greater control over steeping time and the proportion of coffee to water. There also exist small, portable,
single-serving drip brew makers that only hold the filter and rest on top of a
mug
A mug is a type of cup, a drinking vessel usually intended for hot drinks such as: coffee, hot chocolate, or tea. Mugs usually have handles and hold a larger amount of fluid than other types of cups such as teacups or coffee cups. Typically ...
or
cup
A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about . Cups may be made of pottery (including porcelain), glass, metal, wood, stone, pol ...
, making them a popular option for backcountry campers and hikers. Hot water is poured in and drips directly into the cup.
Different filter shapes and sizes exist, most notable the (paper)
coffee filter systems introduced by
Melitta
Melitta () is a German company selling coffee, paper coffee filters, and coffee makers, part of the Melitta Group, which has branches in other countries. The company is headquartered in Minden, North Rhine-Westphalia.
It is named after ...
(1908, 1932, 1936, 1965),
Chemex
The Chemex Coffeemaker is a manual pour-over coffee, pour-over style glass coffeemaker, invented by Peter Schlumbohm in 1941, manufactured by the Chemex Corporation in Chicopee, Massachusetts.
In 1958, designers at the Illinois Institute of ...
(1941) and
Hario (2004).
Manual drip-coffee makers
Cafetière du Belloy and similar coffee makers

Manual drip coffee makers include the so-called French drip coffee pot (invented in 1795 by and manufactured by a metal-smith in
Rouen
Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine, in northwestern France. It is in the prefecture of Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one ...
,
then popularized by bishop
Jean-Baptiste de Belloy for why it became known as in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
since 1800
to the point that it was sometimes incorrectly attributed to the bishop himself
), the (, , etc.)
originating from
La Réunion
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
*"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smi ...
and also common in
Louisiana
Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...
, and the so-called (
Quedlinburg
Quedlinburg () is a town situated just north of the Harz mountains, in the Harz (district), district of Harz in the west of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. As an influential and prosperous trading centre during the early Middle Ages, Quedlinburg becam ...
, Germany, c. 1900).
French drip devices emerged from the earlier
coffee biggin
A teapot is a vessel used for steeping tea leaves or a herbal mix in boiling or near-boiling water and serving the resulting infusion called tea; usually put in a teacup. It is one of the core components of teaware.
Teapots usually have an ope ...
s where cloth filters would be fully inserted into the pot for
steeping
Steeping is the soaking of an organic solid, such as leaves, in a liquid (usually water) to extract flavours or to soften it. The specific process of teas being prepared for drinking by leaving the leaves in heated water to release the flavour ...
instead of drip filtering.
French drip coffee pots don't use paper filters but a permanent filter featuring many small round drilled holes made out of (enameled) metal, ceramics or porcelain. A cafetière du Belloy was originally made out of tin, later versions were made out of silver, copper, ceramics or porcelain. The Grègue and the are built out of (enameled) metal. To avoid sediments in the coffee, coarsely ground coffee has to be used.
Around 1895, skyblue enameled metal coffee pots named were introduced in Denmark by
Glud & Marstrand. They looked similar to French drip coffee pots, but used
cotton filters and were available in 18 sizes for up to of coffee.

The ''Drip-O-lator'' is an American coffee pot for making drip coffee patented in 1921 and in 1930 and manufactured in
Massillon, Ohio
Massillon is a city in western Stark County, Ohio, United States, along the Tuscarawas River. The population was 32,146 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Massillon is a principal city of the Canton–Massillon metropolitan area, whic ...
,
or
Macon, Georgia
Macon ( ), officially Macon–Bibb County, is a consolidated city-county in Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. Situated near the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is southeast of Atlanta and near the ...
,
United States. The production of Drip-O-lators ceased in the middle of the twentieth century. The pots have become collectibles similar to
bric-à-brac
Bric-à-brac () or bric-a-brac (from French), first used in the Victorian era, around 1840, refers to lesser objets d'art forming collections of curios. The French phrase dates from the 16th century meaning "at random, any old way".
Shops s ...
.
In the 1930s, the German company Melitta produced a series of manual coffee makers called ("coffee filtering machine"). They worked on the principle of French drip coffee pots, but used a paper filter and allowed to pour the whole amount of water at once instead of having to pour several times.
Flip coffee pots
A less familiar form of drip brewing is the reversible or "flip" pot commonly known as
Napoletana (1819) and late-19th century variants like the ''
Russian reversible pot'' aka ''Russian egg'', the ''
reversible Potsdam cafetière'' aka ''Potsdam boiler'', or the (c. 1920).
Karlsbad-style coffee makers
A variant of the category of French drip coffee pots is the group of
"Bohemian" coffee pots including the original
Karlsbad coffee maker
A variant of the category of French drip coffee pots is the group of so-called Bohemian coffee pots, manual zero-bypass flat bottom coffee makers made out of porcelain only, including Karlsbad coffee makers (1878), Bayreuth coffee makers (20 ...
s, historically produced by several mostly Bohemian
porcelain manufacturer
Porcelain (), also called china, is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The greater strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, ...
s since 1878 up into the first half of the 20th century, and variants produced by
Siegmund Paul Meyer (SPM) /
Walküre since 1910,
Friesland
Friesland ( ; ; official ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia (), named after the Frisians, is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen (p ...
(FPM).
In contrast to French drip coffee pots which feature round holes, they all use a special double-layered cross-slitted strainer made from through-glazed porcelain.
Before
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, they were very popular in the
Viennese coffee house culture
The Viennese coffee house (, ) is a typical institution of Vienna that played an important part in shaping Viennese culture.
Since October 2011 the "Viennese Coffee House Culture" is listed as an "Intangible Cultural Heritage" in the Austrian ...
. The special kind of drip coffee they produce is called a ("Karlsbad coffee").
System Büttner coffee makers
''System Büttner'' coffee makers are a type of coffee makers featuring a special permanent through-glazed porcelain filter with triangularly-arranged slits and a
valving mechanism
A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings, ...
to combine steeping with drip-brewing. They were invented in 1926 by the
coffee roaster
Roasting coffee transforms the chemical and physical properties of green coffee beans into roasted coffee products. The roasting process produces the characteristic flavor of coffee by causing the green coffee beans to change in taste. Unroaste ...
Carl A. Büttner (
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, Germany)
and produced up into, at least, the 1940s by the porcelain manufacturer (Weiden, Germany) for various German coffee roasters and distributors.
Automatic drip-coffee makers
Electric drip-coffee makers
One of the first electrical drip coffee makers was the German
Wigomat, patented in 1954. In the early 1970s electrical drip coffee makers became more common, causing a decline in manual drip coffee preparation methods until the 2010s, and the near-extinction of
coffee percolator
A coffee percolator is a type of pot used for the brewing of coffee by continually cycling the boiling or nearly boiling brew through the grounds (coffee), grounds using gravity until the required strength is reached. The grounds are held in a ...
s. Among the early electrical drip coffee machines was a machine designed by two former
Westinghouse engineers and sold under the brand
Mr. Coffee in the early 1970s.
It normally works by admitting water from a cold-water reservoir into a flexible hose in the base of the reservoir leading directly to a thin metal tube or heating chamber (usually, of aluminium), where a heating element surrounding the metal tube heats the water. The heated water moves through the machine using the
thermosiphon
A thermosiphon (or thermosyphon) is a device that employs a method of passive heat transfer, heat exchange based on natural convection, which circulates a fluid without the necessity of a mechanical pump. Thermosiphoning is used for circulation ...
principle. Thermally induced pressure and the siphoning effect move the heated water through an insulated rubber or vinyl riser hose, into a spray head, and onto the ground coffee, which is contained in a brew basket mounted below the spray head. The coffee passes through a filter and drips down into the carafe. A one-way valve in the tubing prevents water from siphoning back into the reservoir. The carafe, usually made of glass, rests on a warming plate that keeps the brewed coffee warm. A thermostat attached to the heating element turns off the heating element as needed to prevent overheating the water in the metal tube (overheating would produce only steam in the supply hose), then turns back on when the water cools below a certain threshold. For a standard 10- to 12-cup drip coffeemaker, using a more powerful thermostatically controlled heating element (in terms of wattage produced), can heat increased amounts of water more quickly using larger heating chambers, generally producing higher average water temperatures at the spray head over the entire brewing cycle. This process can be further improved by changing the aluminium construction of most heating chambers to a metal with superior heat transfer qualities, such as copper.
Throughout the latter part of the 20th century, a number of inventors patented various coffeemaker designs using an automated form of the drip brew method. Subsequent designs have featured changes in heating elements, spray head, and brew-basket design, as well as the addition of timers and clocks for automatic-start, water filtration, filter and carafe design, drip stop, and even built-in coffee grinding mechanisms.
See also
*
Chorreador
*
Coffeemaker
A coffeemaker, coffee maker or coffee machine is a cooking appliance used to brew coffee. While there are many different types of coffeemakers, the two most common brewing principles use gravity or pressure to move hot water through coffee ...
*
Cold drip coffee
*
Indian filter coffee
Indian filter coffee is a coffee drink made by mixing hot milk and sugar with the infusion obtained by percolation brewing of finely ground coffee powder with chicory in a traditional Indian filter. It has been described as "hot, strong, sweet ...
*
List of coffee drinks
Coffee drinks are made by brewing water with ground coffee beans. The brewing is either done slowly, by Coffee filter, drip, filter, French press, moka pot or Coffee percolator, percolator, or done very quickly, under pressure, by an espresso m ...
*
Soft-brew coffee
*
Trojan Room coffee pot
The Trojan Room coffee pot was a coffee machine located in the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, England. It was the subject of the world's first webcam, created by Quentin Stafford ...
*
Vacuum coffee maker
A vacuum coffee maker brews coffee using two chambers where vapor pressure and gravity produce coffee. This type of coffee maker is also known as ''vac pot'', ''siphon'' or ''syphon coffee maker,'' and was invented by Loeff of Berlin in the 1830 ...
Notes
References
External links
Hand Drip Coffee{{Coffee
Coffee preparation
Coffee culture
Coffee
sv:Kaffebryggare