Filter coffee
Filter coffee is arguably the purest form of this internationally popular hot beverage, with water being allowed to work its way through freshly ground coffee beans and draw out all of the excellent flavour before falling into a receptacle below ready for serving. Some people choose to take the resultant coffee black, while others like to add milk, cream, sugar or a combination of the three to enjoy morning, noon or night.
Filter coffee is typically prepared using one of three main technologies. Paper filters have been around since the early 20th century when they were invented by a German and machines which use paper filters are arguably the easiest to maintain as you can put both the filter and its exhausted contents into the bin in one fell swoop. This does result in a slightly increased impact on the environment and paper filters are not universally available, so in some countries metallic perforated filters are used. Modern coffee machines intended to produce filter coffee will use plastic meshes as permanent filters. Like the metal filters these require more maintenance than those which have disposable paper inserts, but they are greener on the whole because nothing is being consumed other than the beans with each brew.
The paper filter method has one other slight problem in that purists believe that it traps a little too much of the flavour and essence of the bean. On the positive side you will find that your coffee is free from sedimentary deposits which might otherwise be allowed through by the more porous permanent filters.