When buying coffees from Melitta, the package would tell you coffee filter was invented by Melitta, it was how I knew about this. Excellent invention.
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2026
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At the beginning of the 20th century, Bentz realized that the process for brewing coffee was difficult and frustrating. From her experience as a housewife, she converged upon three major pain points with coffee makers. First, at this time, coffee was usually prepared with percolators. This led to a phenomenon known as overextraction, where too many compounds are extracted from the coffee grounds [1]. Percolators work by cycling boiling water through coffee grounds. However, this constant overexposure to high temperatures, combined with already brewed coffee cycling through due to poor filtration, led the percolator to be particularly susceptible to overextraction [2]. Secondly, already existing espresso filters left grounds in the drink. Not to mention it took up to five minutes to produce a cup of espresso [3]. Bentz then turned to linen bags or cloth filters, but they were difficult to use and impossible to clean. Therefore, Bentz’s solution aimed at creating better-tasting coffee while making the process easier. After some trial and error, she stumbled upon a new solution. She ripped a piece of blotting paper from her son’s notebook and placed it in a perforated brass pot. Next, she added ground coffee and poured water over it, dripping through the holes in the pot into a cup [4]. Bentz had just created the coffee filter. This solution addressed the pain points in a number of ways. The clean-up process was easier and more hygienic as the paper filter went straight into the trash, reducing the presence of messy coffee grounds. In Jun 1908, Bentz was granted a patent for her paper filter by The Imperial Patent Office in Berlin.
Wow this is so cool! Thanks for posting!
Paper filters also remove diterpenes, which it is maintained is better for cardiovascular health. Another WIN!
Random DDG article from searching "paper coffee filter" & "diterpenes" :
https://talkingcrowcoffeeroasters.com/blogs/informed/coffee-diterpenes-and-your-health
During World War II, Melitta Company paused production of coffee filters to instead produce military supplies for the Nazis as a "National Socialist model plant."
lol, I think it would be difficult to find one company who didn't work for the Nazis, kinda how totalitarianism works
true, but still to make the list of a model plant you gotta be affiliated, the ceo was in the nsdap since 1933 and later in the SS. so quite a bit more than the normal person
Ah, so Nazi Nazis 😄
Watch out, a women is coming
I am vast, I contain multitudes.
Just like your mom (scnr)
my favorite kind of women is a women.
Oh shit here come dat women
Wow, a woman?! Inventing something?!!
Am I the only one who finds this patronizing?
If you take the entire thing in context it's less that she invented something and more the time it was done and that she got credit for it.
and that she got credit for it.
That's, honesty, what surprised me. The whole process of her discovering it was super interesting!
I mean, you have quite the selection to choose from
*woman
Fun fact: the tea bag was also invented by women - or at least they got the first patent for it. (I have a hard time believing that in the thousands of years of people drinking tea, nobody thought to put it in a bag)
Seven years after Roberta and Mary filed their patent, Thomas Sullivan would start distributing samples of his tea in little silk bags. He'd later say he had intended for customers to tear open the bags and brew loose, and was surprised that they would prepare a single serving sample of tea by leaving it in a porous bag. This became a popular legend of him inventing the tea bag by accident
(I have a hard time believing that in the thousands of years of people drinking tea, nobody thought to put it in a bag)
Well bags got wheels just the last century 😅
I wonder what bags these might have been.
I guess yeah this wouldn't be common knowledge for most. I grew up around the area so I had heard this plenty before.
Fascinating story behind early coffee filters and coffee makers, anyways.
So that’s why they’re called Melitta!
Thanks Melitta!