About Chemex
Chemex was invented in 1941 by Peter Schlumbohm, a German-born chemist who held patents on more than 300 inventions. He built the brewer's hourglass shape from a laboratory Erlenmeyer flask and the design language of the Bauhaus school, aiming for a coffee maker that was purely functional with no extraneous parts. The Museum of Modern Art recognized it as one of the best-designed products of the year in 1943, and the Chemex remains in MoMA's permanent collection today, alongside the Brooklyn Museum and the Corning Museum of Glass.
The company still centers its lineup on that original single-piece borosilicate-glass vessel, offered across the Classic Series in 3-, 6-, 8-, and 10-cup sizes, plus glass-handle and hand-blown variants for buyers who want no wood-and-leather collar. Chemex's proprietary Bonded filters are considerably thicker than standard paper, designed to strip oils and fine sediment for a clear, tea-like cup, and the brand has extended the same filtration into the Ottomatic, an automatic pour-over machine that manages pre-infusion and water temperature on its own. The brewer's museum pedigree and eight-decade production run have made it a reference point other pour-over makers are still measured against.
Brand website: chemexcoffeemaker.com
What Chemex makes
Chemex's range runs wider than the products we review. The lines we know best from our own testing are marked with a star:
Classic Series (3/6/8/10-Cup)
The original hand-blown borosilicate-glass hourglass brewer, offered across four batch sizes — featured on Brew Gazette
Glass Handle Series
Same brewing vessel with an integrated glass handle in place of the wood-and-leather collar
Handblown Series
Artisan hand-blown glass editions with more variation in the finished glass
Ottomatic 2.0
Automatic pour-over machine that manages pre-infusion and water temperature over the Classic Series carafe
Bonded Filters
Proprietary pre-folded and unfolded paper filters, roughly 20 to 30 percent thicker than standard filter paper
Why we recognized Chemex
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 hands-on category reviews. Chemex earned it on the strength of the products below, evaluated the same way every product on this site is: bought, brewed with daily, and judged on what lands in the cup.
Chemex products we rated highly
Chemex Classic Series 6-Cup Pour-Over Glass Coffee Maker
In our testing, the thick bonded filters trapped nearly all of the coffee's oils and fine particles, producing the cleanest, most sediment-free cup in the roundup. The single-piece borosilicate-glass body brews and serves without a separate carafe, and the 6-cup size holds roughly 30 ounces for brewing a full pot at once. It carries nearly 7,000 reviews at a 4.8 average, and the design has sat in MoMA's permanent collection since 1943.
Read the 9 Best Pour-Over Coffee Makers of 2026 guide →What earned Chemex the recognition
- The Classic Series design has been in MoMA's permanent collection since 1943 and remains in continuous production more than eight decades later
- Proprietary Bonded filters run 20 to 30 percent thicker than standard paper, trapping oils and fine sediment for a notably clear, sediment-free cup
- The single-piece borosilicate-glass body brews and serves in one vessel, with no plastic in the brew path
- The 6-Cup model we tested carries nearly 7,000 Amazon reviews at a 4.8 average rating
- The lineup spans four Classic Series sizes plus an automatic Ottomatic brewer, so the same filtration approach scales from a single mug to a full carafe