Chemex Corporation

Chemex Corporation is the American company that makes the Chemex Coffeemaker, the hourglass-shaped glass pour-over brewer with a wooden collar and a leather tie. It was incorporated in New York in 1939 by the German-born chemist Dr Peter Schlumbohm together with two partners, and it is still owned and run by a single family, from a factory in Massachusetts.¹²³

The company sells one idea, and has for eighty-odd years: that coffee should be made the way a chemist separates a liquid from a solid. Everything about the object follows from that — the lab glass, the deliberately thick paper, the complete absence of moving parts.

Who Schlumbohm was

Peter Schlumbohm was born in Kiel, Germany, on 10 July 1896 and died in 1962.²³ He took a doctorate in chemistry at the University of Berlin, first came to the United States in 1931, and spent his career inventing — mostly in refrigeration, where he filed dozens of patents through the 1930s.³

The coffeemaker was the one that stuck. Lemelson-MIT’s biography puts it bluntly: the Chemex line was Schlumbohm’s “only line of commercially successful products,” despite a career of inventing.² The Hagley Library, which holds his scrapbooks and papers, describes him as a “chemist and industrial designer” driven by “a desire for a cleaner cup of coffee, and a knack for marketing and promotion.”⁴

That second half matters as much as the first. Schlumbohm did not just design the thing; he sold it, hard, under the tagline “The Chemists’ Way of Making Coffee.”²

Founding and the early years

Year	What happened
1930s	Schlumbohm designs the coffeemaker in New York4
13 April 1939	Files the U.S. patent — no. 2,241,368, a “Filtering Device”3
late 1939	Chemex Corporation incorporated in New York State, with Schlumbohm, Isaac Harter and Edward Turner as directors23
1941	Patent awarded; Chemex dates the product from this year12
within ~3 years	Department stores Wanamaker’s and Macy’s agree to stock it2
WWII	Schlumbohm gets War Production Board approval to keep manufacturing, then signs a production deal with Corning Glass Works2
early 1980s	The Grassy family buys the company5
late 2014	The operation moves to Chicopee, Massachusetts5

The wartime detail is the interesting one. Glass and manufacturing capacity were rationed, so a new consumer coffeemaker needed government sign-off simply to exist — and once Schlumbohm had it, he handed production to Corning, the company that also made Pyrex.²

What the object is

A Chemex is one piece of borosilicate glass — the same heat-resistant type used for laboratory glassware — shaped into an hourglass, with a conical funnel on top and a serving carafe below.¹ Because the neck is narrow, a split wooden collar held shut by a leather tie does the job a handle would.⁶

Borosilicate is the whole trick, and it is the same trick Hario plays in Japan: glass that takes boiling water poured straight onto it without cracking, and that adds no flavour of its own. Chemex’s own wording is that the glass “imparts no flavors or chemicals into your brewed coffee.”

The filters are the second half of the design. Chemex Bonded filters are noticeably thicker than ordinary drip filters and, in Wikipedia’s description, remove “most of the coffee oils.”⁶ Thicker paper holds back more oil, so the cup comes out unusually clear and tea-like with less body than the same coffee through a cone dripper — the trade-off is deliberate, not a flaw. See Pour-over brewing for how the brewing actually works and how it compares to a V60.

The filters are also, notably, the part Chemex still makes itself. At the Chicopee plant the glass bodies arrive from Croatia and Taiwan, while the filters are cut and folded on site and the leather ties, quality control, packing and shipping are all done by hand — an employee quoted in a factory tour said “everything is one way or another assembled by hand, we don’t have anything fully automated.”⁵

A design object first

The Chemex has spent most of its life being treated as sculpture that happens to make coffee.

Designers at the Illinois Institute of Technology named it one of the best-designed products of modern times, and it sits in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.²⁶ Lemelson-MIT also lists the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution; Wikipedia adds the Brooklyn Museum.²⁶

This is why the brewer survived decades when nobody was talking about brewing method. It was bought as an object, kept as an object, and was already on people’s shelves when third wave cafés went looking for manual brewers in the 2000s.

Who owns it now

Chemex’s own account is that the company “has been a family owned and operated company for over 40 years” and that the coffeemaker is “still being manufactured in Massachusetts.”¹ The site does not name the family or the city.

A factory tour by the trade publication Sprudge fills both gaps: Patrick and Liz Grassy bought the company in the early 1980s after hearing from a relative that its owners were looking to sell, and after Patrick’s death in 1998 the business passed to Liz, her son Adams and her daughter Liza Grassy, who are described as the present-day owners. Adams and Liza joined full time around 2010–2011, and the article dates the pickup in sales to about 2005 — the same window in which specialty coffee rediscovered manual brewing.⁵

That timeline is internally consistent: an early-1980s purchase is exactly “over 40 years” of family ownership as of today.

Not a coffee company

Worth saying plainly, because the name turns up constantly in brewing write-ups and competition recaps: Chemex Corporation grows, mills, roasts and sells no coffee. There is no Chemex lot, no cupping score, no altitude, no processing method and no auction price attached to the name, and none should ever be attributed to it. It does not appear as a producer, exporter, seller or buyer in Best of Panama or Cup of Excellence records, or in green-coffee auction results.

Baristas do brew on Chemex in competition — it is one of the accepted manual methods in the brewing round of Coffee Masters, for instance — but those scores belong to the competitor and the coffee, never to the equipment maker.

To verify — Pittsfield or Chicopee

Two sources give two different Massachusetts cities as Chemex’s home. Lemelson-MIT says “Chemex Corp., now based in Pittsfield, Mass.”;² Wikipedia says the coffeemaker is “manufactured by the Chemex Corporation in Chicopee, Massachusetts.”⁶ The Sprudge factory tour appears to resolve it — it describes the company as having moved into the Chicopee building “late last year” (i.e. late 2014), which would make Pittsfield the earlier address and Chicopee the current one.⁵ But no corporate filing or company statement confirming the move was consulted, and Chemex’s own About page names only the state.¹ Treat Chicopee as the likely current site, not an established fact.

To verify — 1956 or 1958 for the IIT award

Lemelson-MIT dates the Illinois Institute of Technology recognition to 1956;² Wikipedia dates the same selection to 1958.⁶ Neither cites the underlying IIT document, and no primary source for the award was found. The fact of the recognition is agreed by both; the year is not settled.

To verify — how many things Schlumbohm actually patented

Lemelson-MIT states he “invented and patented some 300 items over the course of his career.”² Wikipedia’s own account is far smaller and more specific: 44 patents filed between 1929 and 1941, at least 26 of them on refrigeration.³ These are not reconcilable as written — they may be counting different things (ideas versus granted U.S. patents, or one country versus many), but no source read here says so. Do not repeat “300 patents” as a verified figure.

To verify — the Grassy family and current ownership

The owners’ names, the early-1980s purchase, Patrick Grassy’s death in 1998 and the Croatia/Taiwan glass sourcing all rest on a single trade-press article, read first-hand for this note.⁵ No corporate registry entry, filing or company statement naming the owners was consulted, and Chemex’s own site names no individuals.¹ The article also dates from around 2015, so roles may have changed since. No revenue, headcount or production-volume figure was found anywhere.

To verify — the cafestol claim

Wikipedia says the thicker filters “may also assist in removing more cafestol, a cholesterol-elevating compound.”⁶ The hedge is in the original, no study is cited on the page, and Chemex’s own materials make no such claim. This same conflict is flagged on Pour-over brewing. Plausible mechanism, not a documented finding.

To verify — similarly named companies that are not this one

Searches for “Chemex” surface at least two unrelated businesses — a German foundry-chemicals firm and a separate industrial group — neither of which has any connection to the coffeemaker. Nothing on this page draws on them, and their corporate histories should never be merged into this one.

Related

• Peter Schlumbohm — the inventor himself: the refrigeration career, the “Beautilities”, and what the record does and does not show
• Pour-over brewing — the method the Chemex belongs to, and where the brewing detail and recipes live
• Hario · Kalita — the other companies behind the standard pour-over brewers
• AeroPress — the other iconic single-inventor American brewer
• Siphon brewing — the other brewing method that looks like laboratory equipment because it is
• Coffee grinding · Brew ratio · Water for brewing coffee — the variables a Chemex leaves entirely to the brewer
• Third wave coffee · Specialty coffee — the movement that pulled a 1940s design object back onto café counters
• Coffee Masters — a competition where Chemex is an accepted brewing method
• Sprudge — the trade publication behind the factory reporting used here
• La Marzocco — the other long-lived family-owned coffee equipment maker on this wiki

Official links

• Official site — Chemex Coffeemakers

Footnotes

1. About CHEMEX® — Chemex Coffeemakers & Filters — confirmed via fetch: company name, manufacture in Massachusetts, “family owned and operated company for over 40 years”, 1941 patent, Dr Peter Schlumbohm as inventor, one-piece borosilicate glass, Bonded filters made in the USA ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

2. Peter Schlumbohm — Lemelson-MIT Program — confirmed via fetch: Kiel 1896 birth and 1962 death, 1939 New York incorporation with two partners, 1939 patent filing and 1941 award, “The Chemists’ Way of Making Coffee”, Wanamaker’s and Macy’s, War Production Board and Corning Glass Works, the 1956 IIT recognition, MoMA/Philadelphia/Smithsonian collections, “some 300 items”, Pittsfield ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

3. Peter Schlumbohm — Wikipedia — confirmed via fetch: 10 July 1896 in Kiel, doctorate from the University of Berlin, first U.S. visit 1931, patent filed 13 April 1939 as no. 2,241,368 “Filtering Device”, incorporation in New York State in late 1939 with Isaac Harter and Edward Turner, 44 patents filed 1929–1941 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

4. Tasteful Design: Peter Schlumbohm & the Chemex Coffeemaker — Hagley Museum and Library — confirmed via fetch: “chemist and industrial designer”, the coffeemaker “designed in the 1930s”, the cleaner-cup motivation and marketing knack, and the Schlumbohm scrapbooks held at Hagley ↩ ↩²

5. Journey To The Center Of The Chemex Factory — Sprudge — confirmed via fetch: Chicopee location and the late-2014 move, Adams, Liz and Liza Grassy as present-day owners, Patrick Grassy’s 1998 death, the early-1980s purchase, glass formed in Croatia and Taiwan, filters made on site, the hand-assembly quote, and the 2005 sales upturn ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

6. Chemex Coffeemaker — Wikipedia — confirmed via fetch: invention in 1941, manufacture by Chemex Corporation in Chicopee, Massachusetts, the wooden collar and leather tie, filters thicker than standard and removing most coffee oils, the hedged cafestol claim, the MoMA and Brooklyn Museum collections, and the 1958 date for the IIT selection ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷