So many individuals cannot survive without their morning cup of coffee. Whether they make it at home or stop at a coffee shop along the way, a cup of coffee is the difference between functioning and not.

The most popular packaging method of coffee is in the form of grinds, yet how do those grinds become coffee? It really is not a mystery, in fact, coffee brewing is a very simple process, and has been simple throughout the ages. When hot water is poured on ground coffee beans, the resulting infusion is the same coffee that is cupped and sold for two dollars. With the modern coffee maker, however, a simple process has been made even simpler. Now, everything is automatic, from the boiling of water to the actual brewing, and it all takes less than a minute.

Coffee to Go

The vacuum coffee maker was one of the most popular coffee brewing devices used during the 19th century. A little more complicated than the average coffee maker, vacuum brewers were prized for their clear brews. In these brewers, water is heated in a lower vessel until the water is forced up through a narrow tube due to expansion. The upper vessel contains ground coffee, and the heated water is allowed to saturate the grounds for a particular amount of time. When that time is up, the heat is removed and the vacuum once again pulls the brewed coffee back down through a strainer into the lower chamber. Eventually, even the vacuum coffee maker was automated with a technique called balanced siphoning.

The percolator is a coffee maker that uses pressure to brew coffee. Gravity forces water into contact with ground coffee for a certain amount of time, and than that same gravity is used to remove the brewed coffee. The coffee grounds are kept completely separate from the brewed coffee, resulting in a clear, smooth cup of coffee. With the birth of electricity, percolators were greatly simplified for in-home use.

However, the most popular coffee maker, especially for domestic use, is the drip coffee maker, or dripolator. This device is completely automated, and combines aspects of drip brewing and percolation. With this coffee maker, however, water is heated by an electrical element in a separate chamber, removing the need of a stove or of pre-heating. Coffee brewing devices come in a variety of materials, colors and styles, and can fit into any dcor. While some are designed to blend into the counter space, others are designed to stand out and become a focal point of the kitchen.