Tuesday, December 26th. 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 in 1865.
Now, not only does just about every home in the country have a coffeemaker, but many also grind their own fresh from coffee beans. The percolator still has a market niche, but since the 1970s has been overtaken by automatic drip and pod coffee makers, and increasingly, the elaborate variants of espresso brewers. One-point-five-seven 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 $5 billion per year.
Profile America is in its 21st year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
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