Chemex Classic Pour-Over (8-Cup)
All-glass brewing with no plastic parts touching hot water. Paper filters are chlorine-free. Unlike plastic drip machines that leach BPA and microplastics at brewing temperatures. See our plastic-free coffee maker guide.
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Why it's safe for your family
- The entire brewing vessel is one piece of non-porous borosilicate glass — the same glass type used for laboratory equipment because it does not react with what it holds.
- Nothing plastic touches hot water anywhere in the brew path. Water goes from your kettle, through a paper filter, into glass.
- Borosilicate is non-porous, so it does not absorb oils, odors or residue from previous brews the way plastic brew baskets do.
- The only non-glass parts are a wood collar and a leather tie, both of which sit on the outside of the vessel and never contact the coffee.
Is this really plastic-free? Yes — and here's why
Plastic leaches most when it is hot and wet — which describes the inside of a drip coffee maker every morning. A Chemex removes that entirely: the vessel is a single piece of borosilicate glass, and the only thing between your kettle and the glass is a paper filter. There is no plastic reservoir, no plastic brew basket and no plastic tubing.
What touches your coffee: paper filter and borosilicate glass. The wood collar and leather tie are exterior only.
Quick specs
What to avoid instead
The swap here is an automatic plastic drip machine. In those, hot water sits in a plastic reservoir, runs through plastic tubing and drips through a plastic basket — the full brew path is heated plastic, repeated daily for years.
How we verify — and what we don't
Straight answer: we're a research team, not a testing lab. Here's exactly what our rating is based on — and what it isn't — so you can weigh it honestly.
What we check
- What the product is made of, from the maker's own specs and product listing.
- Whether any part that touches you or your food uses PTFE, PFAS, plastic, or a coating that can degrade.
- Peer-reviewed research on how that material behaves when heated, scratched, washed, or worn.
- Known failure modes — how the product actually breaks down in a real home.
What we don't do
- We have not chemically tested this specific unit in a lab.
- We don't take payment to rate a product higher — there is no sponsored placement.
- We don't show star ratings or "trusted by thousands" counts we can't stand behind.
Anything that adds a known microplastic, PFAS, or off-gassing source — a non-stick coating, a plastic surface against food or skin, vinyl/PVC — is downgraded or cut. We only list what clears that bar.