Thursday, August 12, 2010

Inventions Week! A Better Brew

Melitta Bentz was a German housewife who hated the taste of coffee.  In order to produce the java in 1908 you had 2 choices. You might dump the coffee into muslin and dunk the whole shebang into boiling water.  Or you could use the even more sophisticated 'dump the coffee directly into boiling water' method.  Either way you wound up with crunchy coffee. Melitta Bentz took action!  First she seized a pot and punched holes in the bottom.  Then she grabbed a sheet of paper, cut a circle out of it and stuffed it into the bottom of said pot.  Creating a filter.  She put dry coffee in the pot, poured boiling water over it and drank the resulting beverage.  It was good.  Melitta Benz and her husband had tin filters made, sold them, and  eventually the Melitta Company was born.  It is still in business and now sells coffee filters made from bamboo.  Ever the innovator. 

Sources:  Biography Resource Center
World of Invention

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Fascinating!