Skip to main content

The Chemex: A Coffeemaker That’s Easy on the Eyes

the chemex a coffeemaker thats easy on eyes
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Ever feel dissatisfied with your coffee maker? Almost three-quarters of a century ago, inventor Dr. Peter Schlumbohm was frustrated with the conventional coffee makers of his time because they were unable to produce the right flavor or temperature that he preferred, so he took matters into his own hands. Schlumbohm aimed to develop a coffee maker that not only brewed delicious cups of coffee, but also was easy on the eye. He used his chemistry background to look at the science behind making a great cup of coffee, meticulously testing out water temperature, flow time, coffee grinds and chemical reactions of the beans. What he came up with was the Chemex and the signature double-bonded Chemex filter papers that go with it.

Although the Chemex looks like a work of art — New York’s Museum of Modern Art even has one in their permanent collection — it is extremely easy to use. Even though it was created in 1941, the Chemex was made with the qualities that people still want in a coffee maker today. The  hand-blown glass container is  accented with a wood collar and leather tie. The sleek vessel is made of borisicillicate, non-porous glass, and the filters are free of chemicals, thus no unwanted flavors appear in the brew. Best of all, you control every aspect of the coffee, from the water temperature to the speed of the pour. “The conical shape of the filter fits into the center of the carafe, where the glass curves in, and the stream flows directly from the tip of it,” says Chemex spokesperson Eliza Grassey. “All of the extracted coffee flows from this point, creating an incredibly clean, strong, cup of coffee.”

Recommended Videos

That’s our kind of coffee maker — simple, efficient and great to look at. Best of all, the power is all our my hands.

For more information, visit chemexcoffeemaker.com.

Ann Binlot
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Ann Binlot is a New York-based freelance writer who contributes to publications like The Economist, Wallpaper*, Monocle…
The best sci-fi shows streaming right now
From Lost to The Twilight Zone, these are the best sci-fi shows ever made
The cast of Lost.

Sci-fi television has been around since the earliest days of the medium, and it's evolved along with the rest of television. In every era, though, there have been great sci-fi shows that remind us of how well the genre can fit on television.

Great science fiction can reflect on the world we know, even as it expands our understanding of what's possible. Regardless of exactly what these shows are about, though, each of them tells their story in gripping fashion, taking full advantage of what TV is capable of.

Read more
‘The Brutalist’ director Brady Corbet says he’s made no money promoting the film
The director said that he makes more directing commercials than he does making movies.
Adrien Brody in The Brutalist

It can be wonderful to get nominated for a bunch of awards, but The Brutalist director Brady Corbet said that it's not exactly a profitable one. In an interview on WTF with Marc Maron, Corbet said that he hadn't actually made any money promoting the movie.

“This is the first time I’ve made any money in years,” Corbet said, saying that his first real paycheck in a long time came from directing three advertisements in Portugal. “Both my partner and I made zero dollars on the last two films we made. Yes, actually zero. So we had to just live off of a paycheck from three years ago and obviously, the timing during an awards campaign and travel every two or three days was less than ideal, but it was an opportunity that landed in my lap, and I jumped at it.”

Read more
John Malkovich said that he rejected Marvel movies prior to ‘Fantastic Four’ over low pay
He explained that Marvel movies took a lot of time, and he wanted to be paid accordingly.
John Malkovich in Fantastic Four

Over the course of its 15 years of existence, Marvel has lured a number of surprising actors into its orbit. We live in a world where Angelina Jolie and Harry Styles have both appeared in Marvel projects (actually the same one).

John Malkovich was one of the last Marvel holdouts, but that's changing with The Fantastic Four: First Steps. In an interview with GQ, Malkovich explained that he had been approached to do Marvel projects in the past, but had always turned them down.
“The reason I didn’t do them had nothing to do with any artistic considerations whatsoever,” Malkovich explained. “I didn’t like the deals they made, at all.”
He explained that he simply wanted more money to work through the conditions required to make a movie on this scale.
“These films are quite grueling to make…. If you’re going to hang from a crane in front of a green screen for six months, pay me. You don’t want to pay me, it’s cool, but then I don’t want to do it, because I’d rather be onstage, or be directing a play, or doing something else," he continued.
Malkovich is, perhaps unsurprisingly, playing villain Ivan Kragoff, also known as Red Ghost in the film. He explained that working on the movie was actually like stage work in some respects. "It’s not that dissimilar to doing theater,” he said, “You imagine a bunch of stuff that isn’t there and do your little play.”

Read more