Boiled to Perfection: How Coffee Was First Made

Before the Machines, There Was a Pot

Long before drip machines, pods, and espresso bars, coffee was made the simplest way possible: grounds, water, a pot, and fire. No paper. No plastic. No buttons.

At American Joe Coffee, that kind of simplicity speaks to us. We are veteran-owned, and plenty of us learned to love coffee from a dented pot on a field stove. So let's take a look back at how people first brewed this drink, and what that history says about the "right" way to make it today.

A Short History of Boiled Coffee

Ethiopia and Yemen: where it started

The coffee plant is native to the highlands of Ethiopia. You may have heard the legend of Kaldi, a goat herder who noticed his goats dancing after eating coffee cherries. It is a great story, but it is a legend. The first solid evidence of people drinking coffee comes from the Sufi monasteries of Yemen in the 1400s, where monks used it to stay awake through night prayers (History of coffee, Wikipedia). Their method was simple: roast the beans, crush them, and boil them in water.

The Ottoman pot

From Yemen, coffee spread across the Arab world. Coffeehouses appeared in Mecca in the 1400s and in Constantinople (modern Istanbul) in the 1500s (Britannica). The Ottoman style, still known today as Turkish coffee, heats very fine grounds with water in a small long-handled pot until it foams. It is served unfiltered, grounds and all, and by the end of the 1600s coffee was flourishing across Europe and the American colonies.

The Civil War: coffee as a ration

For American soldiers, coffee was fuel. Union troops received roughly 1.5 ounces of coffee per day, issued as raw beans (Ironton Tribune). Soldiers roasted the beans in a pan, crushed them with a musket butt, and boiled them in a tin cup over the fire. One of Sherman's veterans said a good brew should be "strong enough to float an iron wedge" (American Heritage). Soldiers also learned the hard way to wait until the water boiled before adding the coffee, because an order to march could come at any moment (Civil War Monitor).

Cowboy coffee: the brew that won the West

After the war, coffee followed the cattle drives. On the trail, the chuck wagon cook threw ground coffee into boiling water over a campfire. Tradition said if a horseshoe dropped into the pot sank, the coffee was not ready yet (Harvey County Historical Museum).

Before 1865, most coffee was sold green and had to be roasted in a skillet. That changed when John and Charles Arbuckle began selling pre-roasted beans sealed with an egg and sugar glaze (Harvey County Historical Museum). Arbuckles' Ariosa became so common on the frontier that many cowboys simply called coffee "Arbuckle" (National Cowboy Museum). Fun fact for our Arizona neighbors: the revived Arbuckles' brand roasts today in Tucson (Chowhound).

Then came the filter

For most of coffee's history, boiling was simply how it was done. In 1908, a Dresden homemaker named Melitta Bentz, tired of bitter, gritty coffee, lined a brass cup with blotting paper from her son's school notebook. She patented the paper coffee filter that same year (German Patent and Trade Mark Office). Drip brewing, percolators, espresso machines, and pods followed. But the pot and the fire never really went away.

Try It Yourself: Boiled Coffee at Home

All you need is a stainless steel pot, coarse ground coffee, and water. Here is a simple field-tested approach:

1. Bring water to a boil, then pull it off the heat for about 30 seconds. A hard, rolling boil can make coffee bitter.
2. Stir in about 2 tablespoons of coarse grounds for every 8 ounces of water.
3. Let it steep for 3 to 4 minutes. Want it stronger? Give it more time.
4. Add a small splash of cold water to help the grounds sink to the bottom.
5. Pour slowly so the grounds stay in the pot, or pour through a strainer.

It will not taste like your drip machine at home. It will be bolder and fuller, with more body. That is the point.

The Right Way Is Your Way

Here is what five hundred years of coffee history really teaches: there has never been one correct way to make coffee. Monks in Yemen boiled it. Ottoman coffeehouses served it thick and unfiltered. Soldiers brewed it in tin cups with whatever water they could find. Cowboys judged it with a horseshoe. A German homemaker invented the paper filter because she wanted it smoother.

Every one of them made coffee the way that worked for them. So should you.

Black or with cream. Boiled, dripped, pressed, or pulled as espresso. Light roast or dark. Hot in December or iced in a Phoenix July. If you like the cup in your hand, you made it the right way. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

What matters most is starting with good beans. That is why we focus on single-origin coffee, so you know exactly where your cup comes from. How you brew it is up to you.

Still Serving

From the campfire to the drive-thru, coffee has always been about the people drinking it. At American Joe Coffee, we are proud to keep that tradition going, one honest cup at a time.

How do you take yours? Tell us in the comments or tag us on social media with your favorite brew method. And when you are ready for your next bag, shop our single-origin coffee at azamericanjoecoffee.com.

American Joe Coffee. Veteran-owned. Litchfield Park, AZ. Still Serving.