What Dripper Should I Buy for Making Coffee? Which Brand of V60 Dripper is the Best?

New-style pour-over filters emerge endlessly each year, coming in various shapes and forms, each with its own strengths: some can alter water flow speed; some achieve bypass-free brewing; some can even change their shape!

Despite the wide variety of filters available, if you were to ask an experienced coffee enthusiast to recommend a filter for a beginner, without a doubt, it would likely be the "V60" invented by Hario!

And FrontStreet Coffee is also a "seasoned" V60 user, considering that the vast majority of beans brewed in their shop use this filter, with usage frequency reaching thousands of times annually. This puzzles many friends - with so many filter types available, why does everyone favor V60 so much? So today, FrontStreet Coffee will reveal what exactly makes V60 stand out!

The Origin of V60

The V60 filter was invented by Japan's Hario company, founded in 1921, which primarily focused on designing and producing heat-resistant glass instruments and equipment for scientific research institutions. To date, the company has won hundreds of design awards, with the V60 filter being its most famous invention.

After World War II, Hario company utilized the properties of heat-resistant glass and the glass processing techniques cultivated through manufacturing chemical products to begin producing siphon pots, officially entering the household products market. Coffee equipment was one of the key research and development areas at that time, like the sharing pot often featured in FrontStreet Coffee's articles, which is a Hario product.

However, at that time, slow immersion extraction was the mainstream brewing method in the Japanese coffee market, as Japanese people pursued a cup of coffee with high concentration and rich body. Therefore, most coffee equipment was developed around this concept! Either the operation was extremely complicated, or the water flow was slow, leading to lengthy extraction times.

Hario company didn't want to make coffee brewing complicated, so they wanted to develop a filter that was simple to operate and had a shorter extraction time. Then, Hario company began the journey of creating V60!

In 1964, Hario's designers first attempted to use laboratory funnels to extract coffee, but since this was just an experiment and not for commercial use, not many related records were kept. Several products were developed intermittently based on this funnel, but they didn't receive much attention.

Until 2004, Hario tried attaching several toothpicks to the original funnel-shaped device as flow guides and discovered the resulting effect was extraordinary. So in the following year, based on this experimental prototype, they redesigned and launched a filter for sale! And this filter is the now universally known "V60"!

The Design of V60

The name "V60" comes from the filter's conical angle, because the 60° cone angle forms a "V" shape, so Hario directly named it V60 - simple and memorable.

Compared to fan-shaped or flat-bottom filters, conical filters have distinct advantages - their upper-wide and lower-narrow conical structure not only gathers coffee grounds but also guides water flow, allowing hot water to converge at the center before dripping into the pot. This structure increases the contact area between hot water and coffee grounds, enabling better extraction of flavor compounds from the coffee.

However, we need to know that Hario wasn't the first company to invent conical filters, so V60's success isn't solely due to its conical structure. And here, FrontStreet Coffee must mention V60's other two major features! Because it's precisely these two features combined with the filter's conical structure that keep V60 relevant even after 20 years!

Let's start with V60's most prominent feature - the spiral flow ribs covering the entire cup! Many friends might think these ribs simply provide aeration for coffee grounds during degassing, as the initial ribs were designed for this purpose. But there's more to it!

We can see that unlike other filters, V60's flow ribs aren't straight lines but winding spiral shapes.

The presence of flow ribs guides the surrounding hot water to flow along them! The straight-line distance is shortest, while the spiral design undoubtedly extends the path of hot water flow. Simply put, it serves as a guide, allowing hot water to pass through more coffee grounds and extract more coffee substances.

Whether it's the conical structure or the prominent spiral flow ribs, V60 enhances the extraction of coffee grounds by hot water!

Why? Because V60 has a large drainage hole. The size of the hole affects the seepage speed of coffee liquid, and V60's hole is famously large. The large hole significantly increases water flow speed, so the coffee flow rate largely depends on other aspects of adjustment.

Under this rapid extraction framework of the V60 filter, the brewed coffee will have rich layers due to relatively lower extraction uniformity!

Why V60 Excels with Light Roast Coffee

Why say this? Because as FrontStreet Coffee mentioned earlier, the original extraction methods and equipment tended toward slow immersion extraction, which allows hot water to "extract" from coffee grounds for extended periods! All coffee grounds would dissolve similar amounts of substances, resulting in coffee that tastes rich, smooth, and very balanced.

V60's rapid extraction, by shortening extraction time, prevents hot water from extracting the same amount of substances from all coffee grounds, so some flavors in the coffee will be more prominent while others remain subtle. Distinct layers, very pleasant!

This type of extraction is particularly suitable for light roast coffee, which was becoming mainstream at the time, so the "right place at the right time" V60 immediately became popular!

V60 Today

Today, V60 remains a top contender among pour-over filters. Not only because light roast coffee is mainstream in this era, but also because it can produce a delicious cup of coffee with rich layers using the simplest method.

So, if you're a beginner looking to purchase a filter for pour-over coffee brewing, V60 would indeed be an excellent choice!

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