Smart Buy: Reusable Cloth Coffee Filters

Textile industry veteran Geana Sieburger founded GDS Cloth Goods as a source of environmentally sustainable, ethically made sewn goods for people who appreciate good design. Sieburger makes aprons and more in her Oakland, California, studio, plus a reusable coffee filter that’s an alternative to the single-use pour-over filter.

More broadly, Sieburger is on a mission to reconnect consumers of cloth with the source of their products, just like the farm-to-table movement has rekindled a connection between people and the source of their food. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sieburger developed her reverence for textiles growing up in her native Brazil, where, in the eighties, she says, “bakeries and their bakers could be found every few blocks, and skilled seamstresses still sewed a good portion of people’s everyday wardrobes.” She’s hoping to re-create some version of that in the US by offering workshops, textile care guides, and a glimpse into the process of making cloth from seed. Let’s take a closer look at the GDS offerings.

Photography courtesy of GDS Cloth Goods.

Above: There are five types of Ebb Coffee Filters, each compatible with a different kind of pour-over coffee maker, including the Chemex and V60. All materials are grown and made entirely in the US and are wholly organic: “Our goal is to make great-tasting coffee at no one’s expense,” says Sieburger.

Ebb filters work just like paper, but will last for up to four months of daily use if properly stored. “Like all things not-single-use,” says GDS, they will change over their life cycle: Water will drip through most quickly when the filter is new, and more slowly when the filter is nearing time for replacement.