I’ve had a bean in my bonnet for a bit about how coffee pros have started to suggest ever more elaborate instructions for our favored pour over methods. The Hario V60 in particular tends to attract a lot of convolution.

I’ve been working on a draft of a post (that started as an idea for a video) about why I’ve mostly let go of the V60 in favor of the Kalita Wave and the trusty and always attractive Chemex. But something happening on Twitter prompted me to share my opinion prematurely… the good folks at Sprudge had been running a twitter poll bracket pitting a number of brew methods against each other. The finale had come down to Espresso versus V60, after V60 had decimated Chemex and Espresso demolished Batch Brew (I voted with the underdog in both of those contests).

Of course I was immediately called out by multiple friends to cough up an opinion.

Which turned into a whole thread with a whole digression about the era when pour over coffee found a home in third wave shops. Here are some bits of it (some good responses from other coffee pros chiming in can also be found on Twitter)…

But as I said when I wrapped up my opining — I don’t begrudge anyone their chosen tool or their elaborate method. Manual pour over is a great way to make a great cup and everyone should find their own comfort level with how simple or complicated they prefer their brewing rituals to be. If you’ve got a 22-step method that takes an extra 10 minutes and requires a bunch of analytics tools, but you really dig it, I’m not gonna kink shame.

Part of finishing the fuller filter coffee blog post is conducting a few experiments, trying out several of the popular “recipes”, playing with some different coffees and water formulations, and acquiring some of the alternative filter papers that are floating around. Maybe in the end my opinion will change, or at least soften. Perhaps instead of breaking the spell cast upon coffee lovers by my colleagues’ calls for complications, I’ll fall victim to it myself? Stay tuned.

If you have thoughts or want to point out how wrong I am about any of this, I’m always on Twitter (like way too much). If you want some beans to appear in your mailbox, that’s easy too.

Check out our pour-over recipe here.

Try a cup on us

Order A Sample