Can You Pour Water Counterclockwise in a V60 Dripper? What Are the Features of the V60 Pour-Over Coffee Dripper?

If you're a coffee enthusiast just starting with pour-over brewing, and you ask an experienced expert to recommend a suitable filter cup for beginners, they'll most likely suggest you get a V60 dripper.

Once you have the dripper, it's time to start exploring different brewing techniques. Circular pouring is our most common stirring method, but then people start纠结 about the direction of the circle - should it be clockwise or counterclockwise? Do different approaches affect the taste?

Features of the V60

Designed by the Japanese company Hario, the V60 dripper can be said to be one of the essential tools for every beginner. The name V60 comes from its 60° conical angle. The 60° angle was continuously tested and verified by Hario Company - it allows coffee grounds to be concentrated, causing water flow to converge toward the center of the dripper during pouring, ensuring sufficient contact time between water and grounds, thus extracting suitable coffee liquid.

Through observation, you can find spiral ribs extending to the bottom inside the dripper. Flow guidance is the main function of these ribs, creating space between the dripper and filter paper, improving water flow mobility and increasing flow rate. At the same time, the large single outlet also allows water to fall without any obstruction.

The V60's ribs spiral clockwise. When pouring along the direction of the ribs, the water flow can follow the pattern and converge toward the center of the dripper like a vortex, making the scouring force on coffee grounds more uniform. But some people wonder: if you pour against these ribs, circling counterclockwise, the water flows collide with each other - wouldn't this interactive pressure, like wringing a towel, increase the extraction rate and release coffee flavors to a greater extent?

To test this, FrontStreet Coffee conducted a comparative test using the V60.

FrontStreet Coffee chose medium-light roasted Ethiopia Faguai 7.0 coffee beans, ground to 80% pass-through rate on a 20-mesh screen (EK43S setting 10), water temperature at 91°C, using 15g of coffee grounds with a single-pour technique, brewing two pots of coffee with clockwise and counterclockwise pouring respectively.

The final extraction times were: clockwise pouring at 2 minutes 8 seconds, counterclockwise pouring at 2 minutes 12 seconds. Testing their concentration values revealed that while there were differences between the two, they were not significant.

Upon actual tasting, both pots of coffee exhibited Faguai's gentle lemon acidity, with white floral notes and citrus as the main tones. However, as the temperature cooled slightly, the flavors of the two pots began to differ: the counterclockwise pot had slightly sharper lemon acidity and wasn't as clean; while the clockwise poured coffee was noticeably smoother with stronger honey notes. But if not compared simultaneously, it would be difficult to discern too many differences.

Using circular pouring methods aims to ensure water flow can "care for" all coffee particles in the dripper, fully and evenly extracting soluble flavor compounds. The main reason we experience turbulence during brewing is due to non-standard or unstable pouring and stirring. Maintaining a single direction during pouring rarely causes such obvious turbulence.

Returning to pouring techniques, the size of circles, stability of water flow, height of the water stream, speed of pouring... all can affect the final flavor expression of coffee, and the direction of circular pouring is just one of these subtle influencing factors. If you use a dripper with smooth walls or vertical ribs leading to the outlet, you don't need to consider the impact of pouring direction at all.

To effectively adjust coffee flavors through pouring techniques, FrontStreet Coffee suggests starting from simpler aspects, such as practicing stable water flow, changing stirring intensity, and controlling pouring time.

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