WASHINGTON, U.S. – The millions of Americans who for a century and a half have enjoyed well-brewed coffee can direct their gratitude to James H. Nason of Franklin, Massachusetts. He received the nation’s first patent for a coffee percolator on this date (December 26) in 1865.
The percolator still has a market niche, but since the 1970s has been overtaken by automatic drip coffee makers, and increasingly, the elaborate variants of espresso brewers.
One-point-five million metric tons of coffee and its extracts and preparations are imported annually. The vast majority of that is unroasted coffee, and its import value is about $440 million a month.
Sources:
Kane’s Famous First Facts, 3850
Patent/accessed 10/16/2015: http://www.google.com/patents/US51741
Quantity of coffee imports/accessed 10/16/2015:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/datafiles/US_Food_Imports/__Value_of_US_food_impor
ts_detailed_tables_by_food_group/Coffeet2_1_.xlsx
Value of coffee imports: http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/current_press_release/exh8.pdf
