# French Drip Pot (Du Belloy) Source: https://dailyextraction.com/methods/french-drip-pot/ Last updated: 2026-10-20 > A French drip pot, or cafetière du Belloy, is a two-part coffee pot from about 1800. Ground coffee sits on a finely perforated metal or porcelain grid in the upper section, boiling water is poured on top through a perforated spreader, and the coffee drips into the pot below. It was one of the first ways to make coffee without boiling it. ## At a glance - Ratio: 1 heaped tsp to 1 rounded tbsp per cup - Grind: Medium-fine (table salt) - Water temperature: Boiling - Category: Metal Gravity Drip & Percolation (Percolation) - Difficulty: Beginner - Origin: France, about 1800 - Also known as: cafetière du Belloy, De Belloy pot, dubelloire, French drip coffee pot, Seihkanne ## Steps 1. **Fill the upper section**: Put ground coffee on the perforated grid in the upper section of the pot. 2. **Fit the spreader**: Place the perforated water spreader on top of the coffee. 3. **Pour boiling water**: Pour boiling water into the top and let it drip through the coffee into the pot below. 4. **Remove the upper section**: When it has finished dripping, lift off the upper section and serve the coffee from the pot. The **French drip pot**, or ***cafetière du Belloy***, is the ancestor of filter coffee. It appeared in **Paris around 1800**: a tall pot in two parts, with **ground coffee held on a finely perforated grid** in the top and the coffee **dripping into the pot below** as **boiling water** is poured through. It was one of the first ways to make coffee **without boiling it**, and the gastronome **Brillat-Savarin** declared it the best method he knew. Ukers calls it "the original French drip pot". Here's how it works and what it led to. ## The short version - **Two stacked sections**, with coffee on a perforated grid between them. - **Boiling water poured on top** drips through into the pot below. - **A perforated spreader** keeps the water from churning up the coffee. - **Paris, about 1800**: tin at first, then porcelain and silver. - **Named after an archbishop**, probably invented by a chemist. ## How does a French drip pot work? Ukers explains that De Belloy "employed the principle of having the boiling water drip through the ground coffee when held in suspension by a perforated metal or porcelain grid". French Wikipedia describes the pot as **two vessels stacked one on top of the other**, separated by a compartment for the coffee. You pour boiling water into the top, the coffee extracts slowly and passes into the lower pot: "less an infusion than a leaching". 1. **Put ground coffee** on the perforated grid in the upper section. 2. **Lay the perforated water spreader** on the coffee. Ukers notes the De Belloy pot had a spreader and a "plugger" to keep the coffee in place. 3. **Pour boiling water** into the top. 4. **Let it drip through** into the pot below. 5. **Lift off the upper section** and serve. Brillat-Savarin added a refinement in *The Physiology of Taste* (1825): take the first brew, **heat it back to the boil and pour it through again**, for "a coffee as clear and as good as possible". ## How much coffee should I use? Ukers quotes the American coffee trade's 1921 advice for drip coffee: from **a heaped teaspoon to a rounded tablespoon per cup**, depending on the grind and the pot, using coffee "as fine as it is practical", but large enough not to slip through the holes. The finer the grind, the less coffee you need. ![Chart of coffee grind sizes from extra fine to extra coarse, with medium-fine highlighted for a French drip pot](https://dailyextraction.com/diagrams/grind-size.svg#medium-fine "Grind as fine as the pot's holes allow, without the coffee slipping through.") ## Who invented it? The pot carries the name of **Jean-Baptiste de Belloy** (1709–1808), **archbishop of Paris**. But French and German Wikipedia both credit the chemist **François-Antoine-Henri Descroizilles** with the invention. German Wikipedia says Descroizilles had it made by a tinsmith in **Rouen**, who then went to Paris, where the bishop recommended his pot; from about 1800 it was known in Paris as the ***cafetière du Belloy***, which is why the invention was later credited to the bishop himself. French Wikipedia says the pot was also called the ***dubelloire*** or ***débelloire***. ## What did it lead to? Ukers says the De Belloy pot was "never patented; but it appears to have furnished the inspiration for many inventors in France, England, and the United States": | When | What | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | About 1800 | The **De Belloy pot** appears in Paris, first in tin, later porcelain and silver | Ukers | | 1806 | **Hadrot** patents a pot with a tin-and-bismuth filter and a perforated "rammer" | Ukers | | About 1806 | **Count Rumford**'s percolator adds a hot-water jacket; published in London in 1812 | Ukers | | About 1817 | The English **[biggin](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/biggin/)** borrows the French drip pot's strainer | Ukers | | 1819 | The **[Neapolitan flip pot](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/neapolitan-flip/)**, a reversible drip pot | German Wikipedia | | 1878 | The porcelain **[Karlsbad pot](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/karlsbad-drip/)**, a special form of the French drip pot | German Wikipedia | Ukers argues that, strictly speaking, the De Belloy pot was a true **percolator**, since the water drips through fine holes in china or metal, and that it predated Rumford's famous percolator by about six years. By 1922 he reported that the French drip method was the most common in **Belgium** and the approved way in **Holland**. *General guidance only. Antique pots may be fragile or made with materials not meant for food today, so use a modern one for drinking.* ## French drip pot vs other methods - **[Biggin](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/biggin/):** England's drip pot, later with a cloth bag. - **[Karlsbad coffee pot](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/karlsbad-drip/):** the porcelain descendant with a glazed filter. - **[Neapolitan flip pot](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/neapolitan-flip/):** a reversible drip pot from Naples. - **[Esencia de café](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/esencia-de-cafe/):** Peru's drip-pot coffee essence. Explore every gravity and metal-filter method in the [gravity-metal chapter](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/gravity-metal/). ## Words used in this guide - [Extraction](https://dailyextraction.com/glossary/extraction/): Extraction is the process of water dissolving flavour compounds out of ground coffee. ## FAQs ### Who invented the French drip pot? It's named after Jean-Baptiste de Belloy, archbishop of Paris, but French Wikipedia and German Wikipedia both credit the chemist François-Antoine-Henri Descroizilles with the invention. Ukers says the pot appeared in Paris about 1800 and was never patented. ### How does a French drip pot work? Boiling water is poured onto ground coffee held on a perforated metal or porcelain grid, through a perforated spreader, and drips into the pot below. It's an early form of percolation, without boiling the coffee. ### What did Brillat-Savarin think of it? In The Physiology of Taste (1825), he said that after trying every method he had settled on the Dubelloy way: boiling water poured on coffee in a porcelain or silver vessel pierced with tiny holes. ### What came after the French drip pot? Many inventions built on it, Ukers says: Hadrot's 1806 patent with a tin-and-bismuth filter, Count Rumford's percolator with a hot-water jacket, the English biggin and, later, the Neapolitan flip pot and porcelain Karlsbad pot. ### Where was the French drip method used? Widely in Europe. In 1922, Ukers wrote that the French drip method was the most common way to make coffee in Belgium and the approved way in Holland. ## Sources - [All About Coffee (1922), Project Gutenberg edition](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28500) - [Jean-Baptiste de Belloy](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_de_Belloy) - [Cafetière](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafeti%C3%A8re) - [Seihkanne](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seihkanne)