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Period: mid 1800
Functioning system: vertical vacuum system
High-capacity coffee machine with glass balls - manufactured in the United Kingdom. Wooden-made and cast-iron support having a zoomorphic shape and balls in glass. This is the simplest shape used for the vacuum functioning system, consisting into two glass balls - one above the other - with a cork and filter. The steam pressure makes the water contained in the lower ball go up, then mixing with the coffee powder contained in the upper ball. When the heat source is removed, the air in the lower glass ball is cooled down creating a vacuum which immediately sucks the coffee infusion of the upper glass ball; percolating through the filter that blocks the coffee infusion dregs. Once the upper ball is removed, the coffeepot is hold with the appropriate support to pour coffee into the cup.
These coffee makers were created for the first time in France around 1840, and were distributed in a wide range of shapes and materials across Europe and America. |
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Period: late 1800
Functioning system:vertical vacuum system
Coffee machines realized by the British company “Cona Company”. Cona introduced a threaded bar to keep hold the filter to the pipe of the upper ball. Since 1910 the company proposed a wide a range of coffee makers which became very popular in France and in the United Kingdom. In those years, Silex Company launched this coffee maker in the United States obtaining a great commercial success. |
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Period: late 1800 - early 1900
Functioning system: vertical vacuum system
Realized in hand-hammered or silver-clad copper by the company “Picard Ltd” based in London, these depression functioning coffeepots were certainly more reliable and easier to handle if compared to the same-period glass-ball coffeepots, not realized in Pyrex glass yet. The two containers are joint by means of a screw thread with filter in a fine metal mesh. |
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Period: 1930-1950
Functioning system: vertical vacuum system
On the right: the German-made coffeepot “Sintrax” realized in Jena in 1930, with balls in Pyrex glass and spirit burner.
On the left: the US-made coffeepot "Silex” created in 1950, with an elegant spirit burner and chromium-plated brass finishings. |
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Period: 1935
Functioning system: vertical vacuum system
Two examples of the Hungarian coffeepot “Agrolux”, having different capacity. A whistle on its top signaled when it was necessary to disconnect the power supply from the resistor. When the coffee beverage was ready, the entire coffeepot was hold to pour the coffee through the spout. |
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Period: 1890
Functioning system: horizontal vacuum system
Elegant “Naperian” coffee maker manufactured in England by Elkingtone & Co, and realized in silver plate and ivory finishings. This coffee maker is a precious example in the evolution of the glass and china model patented by Scottish Eng. Robert Napier in 1840. Like in the glass-ball models, its functioning is based on the physic principle of the vacuum, with the only difference that here the elements are positioned on the same horizontal plan. |
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Period: 1844
Functioning system: balance horizontal vacuum system
These coffee makers are also known as “Compensation siphons” or "Balance" or “Gabet”.
They appeared for the first time in France in the first half of the Nineteenth century, when Louis Gabet registered a patent in Paris in 1844 for a model with compensation siphons and balancing counterweight.
Like in the glass-ball models, its functioning is based on the physic principle of the vacuum, with the only difference that here the elements are positioned on the same horizontal plan and supported by a balance-alike structure which makes the entire coffee brewing process automatic.
The spirit burner is equipped with a mobile cap which puts out the flame automatically when the boiler rises up (with the help of the counterweight or the spring), that is to say when the water pushed up by heat goes into the near glass container through the narrow tube having a filter at its end. Here the hot water mixes up with the ground coffee.
Under the vacuum created in the boiler, the coffee beverage is sucked in the inside, leaving the coffee dregs in the glass container. Through the small tap, the coffee is then poured into the cup.
The authorship of this patent is contended between Paris (Louis Gabet, 1844), London (Preterre, 1849) and Vienna (A.Reiss, 1855). |
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Period: 1861
Functioning system: horizontal vacuum system
In his cafetière-locomotive, Jean Baptiste Toselli - a Frenchman of Italian origins - incorporates and combines in a perfect 40-cm long train the various elements required to the system of “compensation siphons”. The golden brass chassis of the basement is mounted on wheels.
It supports the spirit burner housing at the basement and the ceramic cylindrical body in the upper section of the machine, in addition to a finely meshed basket to contain matches, coffee spoons and sugar. The ceramic body of the locomotive is internally divided into two parts: the rear part (the boiler) contains the water, while the front part contains the coffee powder.
The machine is body is mounted over a simple mechanism so that it can be slightly turned backwards when the machine is filled with the water and so that the cover of the underlying burner can be raised.
The hot water is pushed through a narrow glass tube having the form of a siphon which is positioned in the front part of the locomotive. This is the reservoir where the coffee powder is contained. In this way, the coffee brewing process is started.
The large locomotive funnel with a slightly conic shape allows to pour the coffee powder and allows the passage through the glass siphon having a large metal filter at its end.
After being emptied from the weight of the water, the boiler body lowers and frees the burner cover to close again over the flame, putting it out automatically.
To the effects of the vacuum created with the cooling down of the air inside the boiler, the coffee is sucked immediately through the same glass tube from the front reservoir, leaving the coffee dregs in the other reservoir. The coffee infusion so obtained is contained in the boiler body, from which it is poured into the cup through a small tube running under the locomotive, and then through an elegant tap on the locomotive front.
Each phase of the brewing process could be observed by the table-companions, including the overturning of the boiler, the puff of steam going out of the safety valve, the automatic blowing out of the flame and the passage of water through the decorated glass siphon, first, and then of coffee. |
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Period: mid 1800
Functioning system: Vertical vacuum/percolation or filter system
Two examples of the coffeepot known in Italy as the “Milanese”, a coffeepot realized in brass and internally tinplated copper. This coffee maker was patented in France in 1832 by Grandin and Crepaux. It can operate both as a “vacuum or depression” system and as a “percolator or filter”. As a matter of fact, if at the end of the brewing the heat source was removed, the machine could operate as a depression coffeepot. In addition, if the spout cap was also removed, it worked as a percolation coffee maker with the use of the atmospheric pressure. |
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