Around 1760, French visionaries turned their attention to refining coffee-making apparatus. Donmartin, a skilled tinsmith in Paris, devised an urn pot in 1763 that employed a flannel sack for infusion. Concurrently, another infusion contraption, named the "diligence," was crafted the same year by L'Ainé, also a tinsmith based in Paris.
In 1802, the first-ever patent for a coffee maker was issued, specifically recognizing a "pharmacological-chemical coffee making device through infusion." This groundbreaking creation was attributed to Denohe, Henrion, and Rouch.
During that very year, French chemist François Antoine Henri unveiled the "Caféolette," a coffee maker featuring two stacked containers separated by a filter. The upper container received boiling water, which then filtered through to the lower container, producing the brewed coffee.
By 1806, the first French patent for an enhanced French drip pot designed for producing coffee "via filtration without boiling" was awarded to Hadrot.
François Antoine Cadet introduced the porcelain coffee pot in 1808, while Sené presented the Cafetière Sené in 1815, a device tailored for creating coffee "without boiling." Subsequently, in 1818, a French individual named Laurens is believed to have conceptualized a coffee machine, now seen as an early precursor to the modern espresso machine.
The siphon coffee maker, conceived by Adrien Emile François Gabet in 1844, comprises two adjacent containers – one in glass for coffee and the other in ceramic for water – and operates on the principles of a vacuum.
In 1882, Louis Bernard Rabaut developed the prototype for the inaugural espresso machine in France. His design harnessed steam to compel boiling water through finely-ground coffee. Although the exact outcomes of his experiment remain somewhat obscure, he did share his schematics with the French Academy of Sciences in Paris.
Edward Loysel de Santais is credited with inventing the initial commercial espresso machine in 1843. He subsequently crafted an enlarged version for the Paris Exposition of 1855, reportedly capable of churning out 2,000 demitasse or espresso-sized cups of coffee per hour.
Evolution of Coffee Brewing Techniques from France
