Karlsbad Coffee Pot

The Karlsbad coffee pot, or Karlsbader Kanne, is a pour-over made entirely of porcelain. It has four parts: the pot, a filter with a fine, double-glazed porcelain sieve, a water distributor that sits on top of the filter, and a lid. Hot water poured into the distributor spreads over coarse coffee in the filter and drips into the pot. There’s no paper, so the coffee keeps more of its oils than paper-filtered coffee, though the porcelain sieve still holds back the grounds. Here’s how to use one.

The short version

• All porcelain: pot, filter, water distributor and lid.
• No paper: a fine, glazed porcelain sieve does the filtering.
• Coffee Circle’s recipe: 22 g of very coarse coffee, 350 ml of water at 96°C.
• Bloom for 30 seconds, then pour the rest through the distributor.
• 4 to 5 minutes in total.

How does a Karlsbad pot work?

1. The water distributor sits on top of the filter. According to Wikipedia, it has six large round holes (more on bigger models) that spread the water evenly and stop it stirring up the coffee bed.
2. The filter holds the coffee. Its base is a fine porcelain sieve, glazed so the coffee doesn’t stick, with narrow slits that let the coffee through but hold back the grounds.
3. The pot collects the coffee. When it’s done, you lift the filter off and put the lid on.

Roastmarket suggests warming the pot with hot water first, so the coffee stays hot for longer.

How much coffee and water should I use?

	Amount
Coffee	22 g (Coffee Circle) to 25 g (Roastmarket)
Water	350 ml
Temperature	About 95–96°C
Grind	Very coarse
Time	4 to 5 minutes (up to 7 for a bigger pot)

For a larger pot, keep the ratio, roughly 1:14 to 1:16: Roastmarket uses 40 g for an 850 ml pot. Walküre, the maker, recommended 8–10 g per cup, or 16 g for the first two cups and 6 g for each cup after that.

According to Coffeeness, the classic Karlsbad pot comes in 0.38 litre and 0.85 litre sizes, and the Bayreuth pot in 0.35 litre and 0.7 litre.

What grind size should I use?

Very coarse: Coffee Circle says the coarsest setting on your grinder, and Wikipedia describes grains about the size of salt or sugar, roughly semolina. The porcelain sieve’s slits are wider than paper’s pores, so anything finer can slip through into the pot or clog the sieve.

How do you use a Karlsbad pot, step by step?

These steps follow Coffee Circle’s guide, with Roastmarket’s warming step first:

1. Warm the pot with hot water, then tip it out.
2. Add about 22 g of very coarse coffee to the filter, and set it on the pot.
3. Bloom: wet the coffee with a little water at about 96°C and wait 30 seconds.
4. Set the distributor on the filter and pour in the rest of the water, to 350 ml.
5. Let it drip, 4 to 5 minutes in all (Roastmarket says up to 7 for a bigger pot).
6. Lift the filter off, put the lid on and serve.

Brew mode on this page times the bloom and the drip for you.

Where does the Karlsbad pot come from?

According to Wikipedia, the original Karlsbader Kaffeemaschine came from the Thun porcelain factory at Klösterle an der Eger (now Klášterec nad Ohří), near Karlsbad, the spa town now called Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. The factory filed a German patent for its cross-slit porcelain sieve on 5 April 1878. Roastmarket traces the idea further back, to French drip pots. The pots were popular in Viennese coffee houses, especially before the First World War.

Many porcelain makers produced them. SPM, the Bayreuth firm that became Walküre, introduced the classic rounded, pear-shaped form in 1913, and in 2007 designer Daniel Eltner created the slimmer Bayreuth pot for Walküre. Friesland has made the Bayreuth pot since 2020, and Wikipedia lists it as the only remaining maker of either. Its Varel factory burnt down on 29 June 2023.

Karlsbad pot vs other pour-overs

	Karlsbad pot	Melitta	Chemex
Filter	Glazed porcelain sieve	Paper	Thick paper
Grind	Very coarse	Medium-fine	Medium-coarse
Cup	Fuller, with more oils	Clean	Very clean
Material	All porcelain	Plastic or porcelain	Glass

How do you clean it?

Tip out the grounds and rinse the porcelain sieve under running water from underneath, so nothing stays in the slits. Avoid harsh scourers, which can damage the glaze.

General guidance only. Porcelain gets very hot and can break if dropped or heated unevenly: hold the pot by its handle, pour carefully, and follow the maker’s care instructions.

Karlsbad pot vs other methods

• Melitta: the paper-filter pour-over from Germany.
• Chemex: glass, with a thick paper filter.
• Neapolitan flip pot: another early drip pot, flipped to start it.
• South Indian filter coffee: a slow metal drip for a strong decoction.

Explore every metal-filter method in the gravity chapter.