If you aren’t familiar with the device, the Hario v60 ceramic pour over apparatus is a means of brewing coffee without anything but a ceramic cone and a filter.

It makes phenomenal coffee and is becoming a trend in the United States – a lot of high class cafes and espresso bars have their very own pour over bar that they serve coffee to customers at.  One of the nicest things about the pour over method and installing the bars is that every cup of coffee is made directly for that customer without sacrificing timeliness or efficiency.

Pour over coffee tastes so good we recommend that you make it at home.  It brews better than a drip coffee maker and these little ceramic cones only cost $20 so they aren’t much of an investment.

Here’s How You Make It

Start by setting your Hario v60 02 dripper on top of a coffee mug, and then place a Hario specific filter inside the dripper (I ordered my Hario filters the same time I ordered the cone, they only cost a few dollars for a hundred and fit perfectly).

Now I highly suggest that you grind your own beans instead of buying ground coffee, so if you are doing that you should make sure you have everything set up to grind.  I use a manual conical burr grinder – partly because the price is so fantastic and partly because the Hario Skerton (the one I use is a very durable device and works great when traveling).

You need to heat water on the stove – but you don’t want the water to completely reach a boil.  When steam first begins to rise out of the spout, that is usually the best time to turn the heat off.  Then wait about ten or fifteen seconds before pouring the water through the cone.

Once the beans are ground pour them into the filter, and once the water is fully heated (preferably as close to 200 degrees Fahrenheit as you can, if you don’t want to use a thermometer just follow my instructions above).

Now before you just start dumping all the water into the pour over apparatus it is important to give the coffee grounds the opportunity to ‘bloom’.  This allows for a superior extraction and only takes a moment.

Pour one or two ounces of hot water into the grounds, you will notice that they start to rise a little bit.  This is good.

After a few seconds of that you may begin pouring: aim for a counter clockwise circular motion and once it is about half way full, set down the kettle and stir the slurry with a spoon.  Do this three times, checking periodically to ensure that you aren’t to the top of the mug yet.  It is important to stir the slurry so that the grounds move around and get an even extraction.  If you don’t stir it there is a chance there will be grounds that were over extracted, causing spots of bitterness in the cup.

We don’t want bitterness, which is why we stir.

After the third pour you will have a very bold but not bitter cup of fully extracted pour over coffee, ready to drink.  Enjoy.  That’s all there is to it.