Mr. Biggins

Recently my mother shipped some things here that had been in storage in Oregon. In amongst the china and pictures was this coffee pot.  I do remember my parents using this coffee pot when they had friends over for dinner back in the 70’s. Mike on the other hand had never seen anything like it before.
While I did know it was a coffee pot, I really had no idea what it was called or how you’d use it. So we ended up doing some research. It turns out that it’s a French drip coffee pot, and they’re still quite common in Louisiana. But it’s also called a Biggins, after a Mr. Biggins who is supposed to have invented it (in 1780, or 1817 according to various sources). This one appears to be a pretty good example of the type, with four pieces. The coffee goes into the top part which has small holes in the bottom to let the coffee drain through. The white part goes into the top and seems just to be a way to distribute the water across the coffee grounds. I think you’d need pretty coarse ground coffee to not have a lot of sediment in the bottom.

Perhaps we’ll give it a try next weekend.