My Search for a Non-Plastic Coffee Maker Led Me to the Beautiful and Functional Chemex

I have an instinct that it will someday be discovered that processing an acidic liquid in heated plastic and drinking it on a daily basis is probably not a good health risk. Thus I recently set out to find a good coffee making system that was not based on plastic parts.

Eventually, my investigation of non-plastic contemporary coffee makers led me back to the one my parents used during my childhood in the 1960s and 70s, the beautiful glass Chemex coffee pot.

At the outset of my search, however, I came upon an array of extremely expensive steel-based coffee makers and "systems." There are those with timers and other bells and whistles as well as fancy one-cup coffee makers that require small prepackaged containers of coffee-grounds, measured to brew one cup at a time. The bells and whistles seem more complex than the task is worth and since I know I will be drinking more than one cup, the latter option seems like a lot of expense for little return.

What all these contemporary coffee devices have in common is that they plug into the wall-- a great benefit for the workplace and the dorm-room. If one is at home, however, it is really not at all a chore to heat water on the stove.

The use of heatable glass to make coffee is by no means new. I remembered and sought out the extremely popular glass percolators of the 1950s and '60s that my grandparents used.

These early Pyrex pots, which have become true collectors items, are increasingly expensive and hard to locate. I managed to purchase one on eBay "new and still in its original 1950s box." These percolators have glass stems and partially glass baskets. Thus one can watch the bubbles ascend the glass stem and see the water turn a rich clear brown as it perks up to the top. The sound of coffee perking, along with the warm aroma and taste of the resulting perked brew is an appealing and, for many of us, nostaglic experience. The main drawback of these old Pyrex percolators, however, is that the bottom of the basket is an aluminum section. Thus, again, one is heating an acidic liquid in the presence of a possibly unsafe substance, in this case, a metal. The second drawback that the fine Pyrex stems are extremely breakable as well as being hard to clean.

Which brings me back to the lovely Chemex coffee pot, an all-in one piece of heat resistant glass which looks like two inverted funnels seamlessly fused together. The top funnel holds a strong paper filter (best obtained by the Chemex Corporation, as most commercial filters are not strong enough to work well with this pot and tend to collapse into the bottom). Coffee grounds are scooped into the filter. Water is heated and poured into the top funnel and coffee drips into the bottom. There is only one part to wash. To keep from burning the hands, there is a removable form fitting wooden collar which is held in in place with a leather thong and a wooden ball. Chemex is now also making these pots with a glass handle incorporated into the form. The handle replaces the wooden collar. This is a nice advance as the wooden collars tend to get wet and eventually lose their finish.

The Chemex coffee pot was invented by a German chemist. It has won many awards for design and, as the Chemex web site describes, is included in a number of major museum collections.

Happily, the Chemex coffee pot is still being made by the Chemex Corp. Details on its history, finer points of making coffee with the Chemex pot, and prices are available on the Chemex web site.

The most important point, of course, is that The Chemex pot makes excellent drip coffee. Perhaps its only drawback is that it is somewhat fragile. But given the benefits of a fully glass coffee maker, one doesn't mind being being a bit extra careful.