The Neapolitan flip coffee pot
Water is heated at the bottom, the coffee maker is turned over, and the hot water runs back down through the grind packed between two metal filters. The Neapolitan is the flip coffee maker: a gravity filter that begins with boiling.
Why is the Neapolitan flipped?
Start the scene or choose a stage. The animation simplifies the mechanism; what follows gives the details and the available references.
The bottom container, full of water, is set on the heat; the grind waits above, between two filters. The water heats without touching the coffee.
Read the stages without animation
- Water at the bottomThe bottom container, full of water, is set on the heat; the grind waits above, between two filters. The water heats without touching the coffee.
- BoilingThe water boils; the coffee maker is taken off the heat. The heat source disappears.
- The flipThe whole is turned over: the boiling water ends up above the grind. Gravity takes over from the fire.
- Drip by dripThe water slowly passes through the packed grind and falls into the spouted container. The coffee forms, and the water cools on the way.
- ServingThe empty part is removed and the coffee is poured through the spout. A cup of filter coffee, made without paper or pressure.
To remember: The heat warms the water, the flip puts it on the grind, and gravity does the rest.
In history: In 1819, Morize, a tinsmith, that is, a tinplate craftsman, and lamp maker in Paris.
Read the full article and its sources ↓History
The device is not Neapolitan by birth. Ukers credits Morize, a tinsmith and lamp maker in Paris, with a “reversible double-drip” coffee pot of 1819, which he regards as the ancestor of all the flip coffee pots of Europe and America. It had two movable filters and was set upside down on the fire until boiling, before being turned over to let the coffee filter (source 1). Ukers also cites a Russian reversible pot, called the Potsdam (source 1).
The Neapolitan name comes from usage. The Treccani dictionary describes the “napoletana” as a coffee maker with three elements: water at the bottom, in the middle a space closed by two filters for the grind, at the top a spouted container that collects the coffee “drop by drop” when the device is turned over after boiling (source 2). Neapolitans call it cuccumella, a little diminutive of “cuccuma,” the copper pot in which coffee is made for the family, from the Latin cucuma (source 2).
The theater consecrated it. In Questi fantasmi!, written by Eduardo De Filippo in 1945, the hero settles on the balcony with a small Neapolitan and explains to his neighbor across the way, Professor Santanna, his secret for making good coffee while waiting for it to be ready; the scene is considered a little jewel of poetry on the pleasures of an ordinary man (source 3).
Design did too. In 1979, Alessi entrusted the architect Riccardo Dalisi with a version of the Neapolitan; he worked on it with Neapolitan tinsmiths and coppersmiths, and the object won him the Compasso d'Oro, the highest Italian design distinction, in 1981 (source 4).
The motion
The bottom container is filled with water, the middle basket filled with grind and closed by its second filter is fitted into it, then the spouted container, set spout down. It is heated to a boil, taken off the heat and the whole is turned over: the water, now at the top, passes through the grind and the coffee drips into the spouted container (source 2).
The motion lies entirely in the flip, done with water that has just boiled. After that, nothing heats: the water cools as it passes through the grind, a deduction from the mechanism that no measurement found puts a figure on.
The settings
- Grindnot documented; no standardized recipe found
- Dosenot documented
- Brew rationot documented
- Temperaturewater brought to a boil before the flip (source 2); temperature on contact not measured
- Timenot documented; the flow is drip by drip (source 2)
- Pressurenone: gravity alone, after the flip
What it has going for it
- It needs neither paper nor electricity: the same coffee maker boils the water then filters the coffee, with nothing transferred.
- The device, all metal, lasts decades and can be repaired by the tinsmith.
- The coffee never boils: only the water boils, before touching the grind.
- The starting water is very hot, whereas in 1921 Prescott already judged that water a little below boiling gave a less bitter infusion (source 5); the Neapolitan gets there by itself, cooling during the flow.
What is held against it
- A device full of boiling water has to be turned over, which takes practice and oven mitts.
- The drip flow is slow, and the temperature falls without control while it lasts.
- Metal filters let through some of the fines and oils, like all perforated filters.
- No reference recipe exists: each family sets grind and dose in its own way.
What it gives in the cup
No measurement of yield, concentration or oils specific to the Neapolitan was found. What can be said comes from the mechanism: a gravity percolation, without pressure, through metal filters, with water that starts at a boil and cools on the way.
One expects a cup lighter than the moka pot's, which pushes water through the grind with steam, and richer in fines than with paper. These two comparisons are deductions, presented as such.
Anecdotes
- In the Treccani dictionary, the entry bearing the coffee maker's Neapolitan nickname does not speak of coffee: it describes the Etruscan funerary tumulus of Vulci, whose shape recalls that of the pot. The coffee maker appears there only among the diminutives of “cuccuma” (source 2).
- In Questi fantasmi!, the coffee scene on the balcony, in Neapolitan, troubled the translators: the 1959 Spanish version pulled it toward farce (source 3).
- The Neapolitan remained for Dalisi a lifelong search, which often returns in his sculpture; he received a second Compasso d'Oro in 2014, this time for his social work (source 4).
The sources for this sheet
- William H. Ukers, All About Coffee, New York, 1922, ch. XXXIV and XXXVI (Morize 1819), ch. XXXVI (Potsdam reversible pot) and chronology · online · primary
- Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, Vocabolario, entries “cùccuma,” “cuccumèlla” and “napoletana,” accessed October 21, 2026 · online · tertiary
- Loreta de Stasio, “Discussione sulla traduzione di Questi fantasmi, di Eduardo De Filippo,” Transfer, VII (1-2), May 2012, pp. 105-125 · online · secondary
- Santa Nastro, “Morto a Napoli Riccardo Dalisi, architetto, artista, designer,” Artribune, April 9, 2022 · online · secondary
- William H. Ukers, All About Coffee, New York, 1922, ch. XXXVI (report by S. C. Prescott, MIT, November 1921) · online · primary