A variant of the category of French drip coffee pots is the group of "Bohemian" coffee pots including Karlsbad coffee makers (since 1878),[1][2][3][4][5][6] Bayreuth coffee makers (since 2007),[7][8] the Walküre cup filter (2010)[9][8]: 128 and the Walküre aroma-pot (2015).[10][8][nb 1] In contrast to French drip coffee pots they all use a special double-layered cross-slitted strainer made from through-glazed porcelain[11][12] as well as a water spreader with six (or, in the larger models, more) large round holes.[nb 2] Before World War I, they were very popular in the Viennese coffee house culture.[13] The special kind of drip coffee they produce is called a Karlsbader ("Karlsbad coffee").[11][14][15][nb 3]
The original so called Karlsbad coffee maker was produced by the Thun'sche Porzellanfabrik of Klösterle an der Eger (now Klášterec nad Ohří) near Karlsbad (now Karlovy Vary),[16][17][18][19][20][21] which patented a special filter sieve in 1878.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Karlsbad coffee makers were historically manufactured by many porcelain manufacturers including Thun Karlovarsky (TK) (Karlsbad),[16][17][18][19][20][21][6] Altrohlauer Porzellan-Fabriken AG vorm. Moritz Zdekauer (M Z) (Altrohlau), Erste Porzellan-Industrie A.G. (EPIAG D. F.) (Dallwitz), Haas & Czjzek (H. & C.) (Schlaggenwald), Carl Tielsch (C. T.) (Altwasser), Hutschenreuther (Selb / Bavaria, Germany), Rosenthal & Co. (R. C.) (Bavaria, Germany) / Rosenthal (Weiden/Kronach, Germany),[11][12][22][23] Bauscher (Weiden, Germany), Meißner Ofen- und Porzellanfabrik vorm. Carl Teichert (MEISSEN) (Meißen, Germany),[nb 4] Villeroy & Boch (V. B.) (Luxemburg),[nb 5] Fayencerie Sarreguemines (France), Pillivuyt (France), and Siegmund Paul Meyer (SPM)[10] / Walküre (Bayreuth, Germany)[10] / Friesland (FPM) (Varel, Germany).[24][25]
Karlsbad coffee makers exist in a number of different shapes of unknown origin. The original shape appears to have been a cylindrical filter with two squarish handles combined with a ball-shaped pot.[10] Another style featured a somewhat trapezoid shape known as neukonisch ("neoconic").[15]
In 1910, SPM incorporated the slitted Karlsbad filter into the design of a coffee maker with cylindrical filter (form 523). In 1913, SPM introduced the now classical somewhat pear-shaped rounded form (form 599).[10][8][nb 2] This design was copied by other porcelain manufacturers. Over the years it was available in various sizes ranging from 250 ml[25]: 30 to 2.25 litres.[11]
In 2007, the so-called Bayreuth coffee makers were created by designer Daniel Eltner for Walküre. A slick modernized form following the same construction principles as the traditional Karlsbad coffee makers, the design received the "Good Design Award 2008" of the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and the "Coffee Innovations Award 2008" in the category "coffee machines and mills" at the domotechnica fair in Cologne.[7][8] However, due to its non-symmetrical design it may be difficult to handle for left-handers. It has been available in two sizes (350 ml and 700 ml)[8]: 123 produced by Walküre up to 2019,[8][26][27][28][29][30] and since 2020 by Friesland (400 ml and 700 ml).[31][24][25]: 35
As of 2020[update],[24][25] Friesland was the only remaining manufacturer of any of them, however, their Varel production site burnt down in a fire in June 2023,[32][33] now[update] pending its reconstruction.[34][35]
In the 1890s, Max Thürmer, a coffee roaster of Dresden, Germany, advertised coffee makers and Karlsbad coffee in various newspapers. In the early 1900s, he marketed his invention of a manual coffee maker (the so called Kaffeeaufgußkanne Max Thürmer), which, from its outer appearance, looked similar to cylindrical Karlsbad coffee makers but featured an air-tight joint (through a lid with a thin film of water) between the permanent filter part and the coffee pot below, and it came with a manual valving mechanism (by closing the spout of the coffee pot) to combine steeping with drip-filtering. The devices were manufactured by Villeroy & Boch for him. While the permanent filter in early devices still featured round drilled holes like in French drip coffee makers, later units used a double-layered cross-slitted filter construction similar to that found in Karlsbad coffee makers, but with a much coarser grid, with a large air gap between the layers, and using ceramics instead of porcelain.[36][37][38][nb 5]
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Main article: System Büttner coffee maker |
Since 1926, the idea to combine steeping with drip-filtering was also utilized by Berlin-based coffee roaster Carl Artur Büttner in his invention of a manual coffee maker.[39] While his construction was considerably different, it also featured a valving mechanism (through a rotatable saucer), a through-glazed porcelain filter with triangularly-arranged slits and with an air space below.[40][41][42][43][44] These so called "System Büttner" coffee makers were available up into the 1960s as stand-alone devices for home use, but were also adopted by various other German coffee roasters as part of larger coffee machines produced by the porcelain manufacturer Bauscher for heavy-duty use in restaurants.
Since c. 1952 (and up into the 1970s) the Neuerer Porzellanfabrik in Oberkotzau, Germany, the successor of Porzellanfabrik Greiner & Herda, manufactured coffee percolators named Aromator, which featured double-layered cross-slitted porcelain filters similar to those used in Karlsbad coffee makers,[45][46] and thus not requiring any paper filter rings.
