At Extra Crispy I wrote about Madras filter or decoction coffee and its sufi-communist origins.
American filter coffee, also known as drip coffee, is the stuff of reluctant necessity. It’s late nights at diners and gas stations and the bleary automatic-timer mornings that follow. Taste-wise, there’s very little to love about it. Stale, insipid, and often burnt; this coffee’s only saving grace is that it is always reliably hot. If you were to encounter that kind of rapid, dubiously brownish dripping anywhere else in your kitchen, you would call the plumber.
Available to read online here