Hario V60 Dripper Design Advantages: Differences Between Counterclockwise and Clockwise Pouring

Among the various types of pour-over coffee drippers, the Hario V60 dripper is undoubtedly the best-selling. The V60 dripper features a large bottom aperture that allows water to flow through quickly. Its conical shape enables the coffee grounds to stack, creating greater thickness and giving the coffee flavor more complexity. The spiral ribs on the inner wall help water flow downward in a spiral pattern, improving extraction efficiency. These characteristics make coffee brewed with a V60 dripper rich in flavor and clearly layered.

Structural Features of the V60 Dripper

The name Hario V60 comes from the dripper's distinctive 60-degree cone angle, which is intuitive and easy to understand. The 60-degree angle allows coffee grounds to concentrate at the bottom of the dripper, while injected water converges toward the center, ensuring sufficient contact time between water and coffee grounds for full release of flavor compounds.

The ribs inside the V60 dripper have a spiral shape, extending from the bottom to the top. Their function is to guide water flow and create adequate space between the filter paper and dripper, enhancing aeration during brewing. The spiral protrusions not only extend the contact time between coffee grounds and water but also allow water level to descend while the water flow follows the spiral grooves toward the center point of the dripper. The gravity of the falling water creates pressure on the coffee grounds, forming greater complexity. This allows brewers to control coffee flavor variations by adjusting the speed of water flow.

The V60 dripper's ribs rotate clockwise. When pouring water clockwise, the flow follows the rib pattern more smoothly, while counterclockwise pouring slows down water flow. It is precisely because of the V60's fast flow characteristic that brewers need good water control skills to inject water steadily and evenly, avoiding under-extraction or uneven extraction problems.

Design Philosophy of the V60 Dripper

When mentioning the V60 dripper, most people immediately think of the Hario brand. FrontStreet Coffee also uses Hario resin V60 drippers for daily production in their stores.

Hario, a Tokyo-based company, was founded in 1921 and initially specialized in producing heat-resistant glass products. The heat-resistant serving pots, commonly seen in coffee shops, are among Hario's popular products. In the 1980s, the first drip coffee filter—the Melitta dripper—was invented. It had a small bottom drainage hole, resulting in slow flow rate, with coffee grounds essentially in a soaking state during the later extraction stages. Consequently, Hario's designers conceived a parabolic-shaped dripper to concentrate the extraction path, allowing coffee liquid to drip directly into the lower pot, thereby reducing the chance of over-extraction.

The original design of the V60 was based on the quadratic function y=x². Later, someone improved the parabolic-shaped dripper to nearly conical, which further evolved into the shape of the English letter V.

How to Brew Coffee with V60?

When using the V60 dripper for brewing, FrontStreet Coffee chooses the size 01 resin dripper. The resin material prevents heat loss, and the size 01 is suitable for single-serving brewing. Due to the V60's fast drainage characteristic, FrontStreet Coffee uses a finer grind to increase the contact area between grounds and water, allowing for more thorough extraction and fuller flavor. However, the finer the coffee grind, the more easily the coffee grounds accumulate at the bottom of the filter paper, increasing water flow resistance and slowing drainage, which extends extraction time and can lead to over-extraction with woody or unpleasant off-flavors. Therefore, we must also pay attention to pouring technique to avoid blockage in the later stages.

If you want to extract coffee flavor while maintaining stability, FrontStreet Coffee suggests expanding the pouring range from the center outward after the bloom stage. As the water level rises, use the water stream to rinse through the entire coffee bed, ensuring even extraction of the coffee grounds. Here, FrontStreet Coffee uses their house-roasted Guodingding Cooperative coffee beans as an example, with 15g of coffee grounds, a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, and a total of 225g water, yielding approximately 200g of coffee liquid after filtration, using a three-stage extraction method.

First stage: Pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, starting the timer simultaneously. Use a small water flow, starting from the center point and expanding outward in circles, ensuring the entire coffee bed is saturated.

After 30 seconds, begin pouring the second stage with a slightly larger, steady water flow of 95g. The purpose is to raise the entire coffee bed. The water stream needs to be injected vertically and evenly. At this point, the timer scale should show 125g, with pouring completed around 55 seconds.

When the liquid level drops to about halfway, begin pouring the third stage of 100g using a small water flow in small circles. Try to control the water flow to avoid circles that are too large, which can scatter the coffee grounds and cause under-extraction. Finally, the total water poured should be 225g, with drip completion around 2 minutes. After removing the dripper, shake the coffee liquid in the serving pot evenly before tasting.

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