This morning, as I was drinking coffee brewed in my beloved Chemex, I saw that Boing Boing had linked to this wonderful article in Gourmet Magazine about the odd inventor who developed the iconic coffeemaker, Peter Schlumboum. A little Googling turned up some interesting contemporaneous articles about Schlumbohm, including a piece in Time Magazine from 1946, and another from Life Magazine in 1949. A very brief Talk of the Town entry from a 1954 New Yorker refers to the Chemobile, Schlumboum’s attempt at car design. (Also, an eBay search led me to this semi awful plastic Chemex warming element from the ’60s or ’70s, which I have to confess, I bought. I suspect Schlumboum had nothing to do with this design.) The Chemex itself sits in the MOMA permanent collection, along with his water kettle and the “Filterfan,” an alleged air filtration system.

Whatever one thinks of Dr. Schumbohm, the Chemex makes a damn good pot of coffee (although the secret may lie in its above average quality paper filters more than its beaker-like shape. And they’re still available.