Melitta Pour-Over

Amalie Auguste Melitta Bentz invented the paper coffee filter in 1908 using her son's school blotting paper and a brass pot with holes poked in the bottom. The Melitta company she founded still makes pour-over cones today — the classic red plastic one costs $6 and produces a perfectly decent cup of coffee. It's not fancy, it won't win any design awards, and specialty coffee people will sniff at it. But Melitta filters are available at every grocery store in America, the cone is dishwasher-safe, and it makes coffee that 90% of humans would call "really good." Sometimes simple wins.