About Café Brew
Café Brew is a brand of Medelco, Incorporated, a family-owned manufacturer headquartered in Bridgeport, Connecticut, founded in 1974 by electrical engineer Walter Wolczek and now run by his daughter, President Elaine Robinson. The Café Brew name dates to 1981, when a distributor closing its doors transferred the patent rights for a universal coffee carafe to Medelco, and the brand launched at the International Home & Housewares Show in Chicago. Café Brew's lineup centers on coffeemakers, kettles, replacement coffee and espresso carafes, and reusable coffee filters, built around the idea of fitting brewing accessories that work across multiple appliance brands rather than locking a buyer into one.
On materials, Medelco is specific rather than vague: its glass components are DURAN borosilicate from DWK Life Sciences in Germany, the same lab-grade glass used in scientific cookware, paired with BPA-free resins and surgical-grade stainless steel elsewhere in the line. That transparency carried into the stovetop percolator we reviewed: the listing discloses plainly that the basket, stem, and stand are BPA-free polypropylene, rather than letting a glass body imply an all-inert interior. Café Brew products are distributed through major national retailers including Walmart, Amazon, and Whole Foods.
Brand website: cafe-brew.com
What Café Brew makes
Café Brew's range runs wider than the products we review. The lines that earned places in our roundups are marked with a star:
Glass Stovetop Percolators
German DURAN borosilicate glass bodies built for gas, electric, and ceramic stovetops. Our featured pick is from this line (featured on Brew Gazette)
Replacement Coffee Carafes
universal-fit glass carafes sized to match major drip coffee maker brands
Espresso Carafes
smaller glass replacement carafes for espresso machines
Whistling Tea Kettles
stainless steel stovetop kettles
Reusable Coffee Filters
stainless steel cone-style filters sized for standard drip baskets
Why we recognized Café Brew
The Brew Gazette Top Brand recognition isn't paid for and can't be applied for. We award it to the brands whose products consistently stand out in our category roundups. Café Brew earned it on the strength of the products below, evaluated the same way every product on this site is: checked against the specs, brewing standards and verified buyer reviews, and judged on what matters in the cup.
Café Brew products we rated highly
Café Brew Glass Coffee Percolator, Stovetop, 8 Cup, BPA-Free
Our budget percolator pick, and the honest way to find out whether percolator coffee is worth the ritual before buying a metal pot. The body is DURAN borosilicate glass, the same German lab glass used in serious cookware, so it takes direct stovetop heat without holding coffee oils in a scratched surface the way a neglected metal pot can. Watching the whole brew through the glass is a genuine teaching tool for stovetop percolation: you see the first surge hit the knob and the color shift from straw to amber to deep brown, which is how you learn to pull the pot on taste rather than a timer. It is dishwasher safe and runs on gas, ceramic, and electric coil hobs with no extra maintenance ritual.
Read our Percolators guide →What earned Café Brew the recognition
- Our budget pick for percolators, and the pot we recommend for learning the method before buying a metal one.
- Material transparency that goes beyond the Amazon listing norm: Medelco discloses German DURAN borosilicate glass for the body and is upfront that the basket, stem, and stand are BPA-free polypropylene, rather than letting a glass body imply an all-inert water path.
- A genuine teaching tool for a method that lives or dies on timing. The clear glass body lets a new percolator user watch the brew develop and learn to judge it by color instead of guessing.
- Backed by a family manufacturer founded in 1974 with a traceable history, not an anonymous private-label listing: Medelco has built and distributed the Café Brew line since 1981 through national retailers including Walmart, Amazon, and Whole Foods.
- Dishwasher safe and compatible with gas, ceramic, and electric coil stovetops, which removes the maintenance friction that trips up owners of hand-wash-only percolators.