Chemex
The Chemex is a manual glass filter coffee machine invented by chemist Peter Schlumbohm in 1941 , which is still manufactured and sold by the Chemex Corporation based in Chicopee ( Massachusetts , USA) to this day .
According to designers at the Illinois Institute of Technology, the Chemex is "one of the best designed products of the modern age". As such, it was also included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1958 .
design
The Chemex consists of a glass flask in the shape of an hourglass. Its shape is similar to an Erlenmeyer flask , but unlike this one, it has a conical, funnel-shaped neck instead of a cylindrical one. Chemex uses special coffee paper filters that are thicker than standard filter paper for a filter coffee machine or a Hario V60 , so that coffee oils and sediments are retained much more strongly. You therefore get a very “clean”, clear coffee in which the acidity is very well defined and only a few bitter substances penetrate the paper.
The most striking visual feature is the heat-resistant “wooden collar” around the Chemex's neck, which makes it easier to handle and pour hot water. This wooden collar consists of two parts, which makes it a good fit around the neck of the glass. The two parts are loosely held together by a leather strap. The pieces are not firmly connected to each other and can still move easily, fixed in their position by the conical shape of the carafe, which is conical upwards and downwards. For a design object that became popular during the modern age and the time of precision work, the contrast between natural wood and the hand-tied knot with the laboratory-like, due to the similarity to the Erlenmeyer flask, was a striking feature of its appearance.
preparation
The coffee is brewed with the Chemex by first inserting the special paper filter into the bottle neck and rinsing it briefly with hot water to reduce the taste of the paper. Then fill with the ground coffee. The grind should be a little coarser than for a Hario V60 and finer than for a French press . The hot water to be poured should ideally have a temperature of 93–96 ° C. Then briefly moisten the ground coffee in the filter with a small amount so that it "blossoms" (so-called blooming). Finally pour the desired amount of water over the ground coffee into the filter and wait for it to seep through the paper.
Pop culture references
In the love story Sabrina from 1954, there is a Chemex in the corner of the office of Linus' bar. In the novel and film With Love from Moscow from 1957, James Bond prepares his breakfast coffee in London with a Chemex.
The Chemex also appears in the kitchen of Rosemary and Guy Woodshouse in Roman Polański's 1968 film Rosemary's Baby and in the 1969 film The Tough and the Tender .
In the television series The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77), Mary Richards played Mary Tyler Moore in a chemex in the kitchen of her apartment.
A Chemex can also be seen in a biographical film Before the Dawn about Stefan Zweig .
In the successful American sitcom Friends (1994-2004) a Chemex can be seen several times in Monica Geller's apartment .
A Chemex-style coffee carafe sits on Charles Boyle's desk in Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013), Season 1, Episode 12 "The Bet". Boyles grinds 24 grams of “wonderful new coffee beans” to the size of “Tunisian sand”.
In Christopher Nolan's film Interstellar , a Chemex is used as a water carafe.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dr. Peter Schlumbohm Dead; Inventor of Coffee Maker, 66; His Chemex Called One of 100 Best Modern Devices — 300 Items Patented In: The New York Times , November 7, 1962, accessed September 19, 2017.
- ↑ Chemex Coffee Makers , In: Los Angeles Times , January 8, 1989, accessed on 19 September 2017th
- ↑ Food News: Coffee Puts Wife to Test In: The New York Times , November 7, 1959, accessed September 19, 2017.
- ↑ The Chemex at the Museum of Modern Art , accessed on 19 September 2017th
- ↑ a b Coffee preparation with the Chemex Flying Roasters, accessed on January 10, 2020.
- ↑ Chemex on Friends - Arizona Coffee. Retrieved August 4, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ Chemex in the film Interstellar . Reddit, August 1, 2016, accessed September 19, 2017
