Filter coffee is clean, smooth, and endlessly customizable.
Whether you use a pour-over like the Hario V60 or an automatic drip coffee maker, the method is simple: hot water flows through coffee grounds and a paper filter, extracting flavor and aroma into a balanced brew.
In this guide, we’ll focus on manual pour-over techniques — the gold standard for control and clarity. You’ll learn how to brew better coffee, choose the right gear, and master the ritual.
Filter Coffee Brewing Specs
- Brew Time: 10–15 Minutes
- Coffee/Water Ratio: 1:15
- Grind: Medium-coarse to medium-fine
- Water Temperature: 200°F to 208°F (93°C–98°C)
- Recommended Coffee: DaLat, Saigon OG, HaNoi
Filter Coffee Brewing Summary
- Boil a kettle of water.
- Measure and grind the coffee.
- Assemble the pour-over.
- Pre-rinse the filter.
- Add the coffee.
- Add the water.
- Pour and enjoy the brew.
What You Need to Make Filter Coffee
In this brew guide, we'll be making filter coffee with a pour-over setup. Pour-overs come in several shapes and sizes, but they all work similarly.
Below is a list of equipment and ingredients needed to make filter coffee. However, you may need to adjust this slightly depending on the brewer you own.
With that said, here's what you need to make filter coffee:
Ingredients
- High-Quality Coffee — Opt for a high-quality whole-bean coffee. Arabica, blends, and robusta work well for filter coffee.
- Water — Use fresh, filtered water for brewing filter coffee.
- Milk (Optional) — Add a splash of milk to your brew if desired.
- Sugar (Optional) — A teaspoon of sugar or syrup can be added to sweeten the brew.
Equipment
- Kettle — You’ll need a kettle to boil water for making filter coffee with a pour-over setup. A gooseneck is the best option.
- Coffee Grinder — The best brew is made from freshly ground coffee. Opt for a burr or blade grinder to create the coarse to medium-coarse grind size needed for filter coffee.
- Pour-Over Brewer — A pour-over brewer such as the Hario V60, Kalita Wave, Chemex brewer, or Clever Dripper is needed to make delicious filter coffee manually.
- Coffee Filters — Opt for unbleached (brown) paper filters for making coffee. Never choose white (bleached) filters, as they can taint the taste of the brew and may infuse it with harmful chemicals.
- Coffee Measure — Use a coffee measure or weighing scale to accurately measure each portion of ground coffee.
- Coffee Cup — Use your favorite coffee mug to serve filter coffee.
Coffee Recommendations
You can make filter coffee with almost any type of coffee. However, some beans and blends work better than others.
You have a few choices — varieties of arabica, robusta coffee, and a blend of both beans. Each type produces distinct flavor characteristics and caffeine levels.
Here are our recommendations for each:
- Arabica Coffee — 100% arabica coffee such as DaLat offers sweet, smooth, mellow flavors and a mild caffeine hit.
- Robusta Coffee — 100% robusta coffee such as HaNoi produces bold, dark, slightly bitter flavors and a strong caffeine hit.
- Arabica and Robusta Blends — Arabica and robusta blends, such as Saigon OG, offer a balance of both beans. Expect bold, dark flavors with mild sweet, and creamy notes.
Step-by-Step Guide: How to Make Filter Coffee
Making filter coffee is simple.
However, there are hundreds of ways to craft this beverage. In this guide, we detail how to make filter coffee using a standard pour-over setup such as the Hario V60 or Kalita Wave.
If you have a different type of filter coffee brewer, follow the guide loosely and adjust the method to suit your brewer.
Here's how to make filter coffee step-by-step:
1. Boil a Kettle of Water
Boil a kettle of fresh, filtered water. You’ll need to boil enough water for the volume of coffee you wish to brew and a little more for pre-heating your equipment and rinsing your filter.
2. Measure and Grind the Coffee
Measure and grind your coffee. The type of coffee you use is up to you — just make sure it's fresh, high-quality, and whole-bean.
You’ll need to grind the beans to a coarse to medium-coarse consistency, similar to sea salt or kosher salt. The exact grind size needed may vary slightly depending on the pour-over brewer you use.
The amount of coffee you’ll need depends on how much coffee you wish to brew.
3. Prepare the Filter
Place your pour-over on your cup or collection chamber and insert the paper filter. Pour a small amount of hot water over the filter until it drips into the cup below.
Discard the water in the cup or chamber.
Doing this has two actions — it rinses any impurities in the filter that could taint the taste of the coffee, and it preheats your brewing equipment.
4. Add the Coffee
Add your ground coffee to the filter in your pour-over and disperse it evenly to create a flat, but not compact, layer.
5. Bloom the Coffee Grounds
Pour just enough hot water over the ground coffee to cover it and wait for 45 seconds for the gases in the grounds to escape. This is called the “bloom stage,” which helps produce a more even extraction.
6. Brew the Coffee
Once the coffee has bloomed, gently pour over the rest of your hot water, moving in gradual circles around the coffee. Avoid disturbing the grounds too much — this can block the filter or lead to over-extraction.
Within 10 to 30 seconds, you’ll notice the first drips of coffee pour through into the cup or collection chamber below. After three to five minutes (depending on the brewer), the coffee should have finished brewing.
7. Pour, Adjust, and Enjoy
Remove your pour-over from your cup. If you have a pour-over with a collection chamber, remove the filter basket and slowly pour your coffee into your favorite coffee mug.
Enjoy your filter coffee unsweetened and black, or sweeten it with sugar or syrup and add milk to create a creamy beverage.
Tips for Making Better Filter Coffee
Although making filter coffee is relatively straightforward, it's a bit of an art form and does come with some caveats. If you want to make delicious filter coffee at home time and time again, you must fine-tune your brewing process.
Follow these tips to ensure your next cup of filter coffee is as good, if not better than the last:
1. Measure Your Coffee and Water
Measure your coffee and water accurately. Weighing your coffee to the gram and your water to the milliliter ensures you use a consistent ratio every time you brew filter coffee.
By being consistent, you can identify issues within your brewing process. If your coffee tastes too weak, you can increase the amount of coffee. If it’s too strong, you can decrease the amount of coffee or increase the volume of water.
Once you've found the perfect ratio for your palate, you'll be able to recreate the taste every time if you know how much coffee and water you use.
2. Always Bloom Your Ground Coffee
The bloom stage in the pour-over brewing process should never be overlooked. If you skip this step and add all your hot water to the dry coffee grounds at once, you will likely cause over-extraction and could potentially clog the filter.
Blooming allows the gases in the grounds to release and gives you a firm base for extraction. Taking the time to bloom before you brew will result in a much more efficient extraction and a balanced, clean cup of filter coffee.
3. Use a Gooseneck Kettle (If Possible)
Although you can use a regular kettle for making filter coffee with a pour-over, a gooseneck kettle provides much more control.
The long, thin spout of a gooseneck kettle allows you to pour the water accurately, slowly, and smoothly without disturbing the coffee grounds. This is an asset in making a perfectly balanced cup of filter coffee.
4. Pre-Rinse Your Filter
Always rinse your paper coffee filter before brewing. Pre-rinsing washes any impurities out of the filter and ensures the brew starts filtering into the collection chamber as soon as extraction begins.
Brewing coffee with a dry filter can result in an over-extracted cup. Impurities in the filter — regardless of whether it's bleached or unbleached — can also leave a paper or chemical taste in your brew.
5. Preheat Your Equipment
Always preheat your equipment before brewing if you want to consume your coffee at the perfect temperature. You can achieve this when you pre-rinse your filter. Simply pour a larger volume of water into the brewing chamber and allow it to collect in the cup or chamber below.
You can also add hot water to the coffee mug(s) in which you’ll serve the coffee.
Preheating your brewing equipment reduces temperature fluctuations during the brewing process. Fluctuations can lead to under- or over-extraction and result in a lukewarm brew.
Types of Filter Coffee Brewers
There are several different types of coffee brewers that you can use to make filter coffee. These brewers all work similarly, but slight differences in design can affect the way the coffee tastes.
Here are six of the most popular filter coffee makers and what makes them unique:
1. Drip Coffee Maker
The drip coffee maker is an automatic filter coffee machine. These electric coffee machines have water reservoirs and heating elements that automate (almost) the entire brewing process.
Making filter coffee with a drip coffee maker is simple. The reservoir is filled with water, and a pre-rinsed filter is placed in the brewing chamber, along with ground coffee. A carafe is placed on the drip tray below, and the machine is switched on. The machine then automatically heats and pours hot water over the coffee, and the brew collects in the carafe below.
The drip coffee maker is the easiest way to make filter coffee. However, it doesn’t offer the same level of control that manual pour-overs do. Although drip coffee can be delicious, a better brew can usually be made with a pour-over setup.
2. Hario V60
The Hario V60 is a Japanese precision pour-over coffee brewer. It’s capable of producing perfectly extracted coffee thanks to its conical shape and spiral ridges. The Hario V60 gets its name from its “V” shape at a “60” degree angle. This angle provides the perfect flow rate for coffee extraction.
The Hario V60 is available in a few different sizes, but it’s essentially a single-serving brewer. It’s placed on top of a coffee mug with a paper coffee filter. Ground coffee is added, hot water is poured over the top, and a brew is collected in the cup below.
The Hario V60 is an excellent pour-over brewer for making delicious filter coffee. It’s relatively easy to use, but it does come with some nuances. It’s not as foolproof as the drip coffee maker or other pour-overs on this list.
3. Chemex
The Chemex device is a beautifully designed pour-over brewer that’s both elegant and iconic. It was invented in 1941 and has gained a cult following in the coffee community for its unique appearance and ability to create clean, perfectly extracted brews.
This pour-over brewer has a unique hourglass shape, with a small chamber at the top where the filter and coffee go and a large collection chamber at the bottom.
The Chemex works like any other pour-over — hot water is poured over coffee in a filter, and a clean brew is collected below. However, it does require specific paper filters — the “Chemex proprietary filters.”
If you’re looking for an elegant pour-over for making filter coffee that offers precise control over brewing variables, the Chemex is a good option. However, it does take longer than most other pour-overs and can be prone to over-extraction.
4. Kalita Wave
The Kalita Wave is a unique pour-over that’s similar in design to the Hario V60. However, it uses patented filters with a 20-wave design. These corrugated coffee filters limit the amount of contact between the filter and the brewing chamber — allowing water to flow freely without accumulating.
The unique design of the Kalita Wave makes it one of the easiest manual filter coffee makers. It’s almost foolproof — if you have great coffee and hot water, you’re almost guaranteed to make a perfect cup of coffee with this brewer.
The Kalita Wave is similar to the Hario V60 in that it's placed on top of a cup for brewing. It’s available in two sizes — the 155 (1 serving) and the 185 (2 servings).
5. Clever Dripper
The Clever Dripper is a unique brewer that combines pour-over brewing with infusion brewing. This unique pour-over device creates filter coffee with the same depth of flavor as French press coffee without the silty mouthfeel.
It’s a cone-shaped pour-over with a valve on the bottom. This allows you to immerse the coffee grounds in water before allowing the brew to drip through the filter into the cup below. This provides more control over extraction time and allows you to craft stronger filter coffee.
If you enjoy the body and clean mouthfeel of filter coffee but desire the strength of immersion brews made with brewers such as the French press, definitely check out the Clever Dripper.
FAQs: Making Filter Coffee
Want to learn more about filter coffee and other brewing methods?
Check out the answers to the frequently asked questions below or head over to the Cafely Blog.
1. What is Filter Coffee?
Filter coffee is a brew that’s made by pouring hot water over coarse-ground coffee through a filter. Filter coffee can be made manually with a pour-over or automatically using a drip coffee maker.
2. Is Drip Coffee the Same as Filter Coffee?
Drip coffee and filter coffee are essentially the same. The terms are often used interchangeably, but there are some slight differences. The term “drip coffee” is typically used to describe coffee made using an automatic drip coffee maker. “Filter coffee” is used to describe coffee made using a filter with a manual pour-over brewer or drip coffee maker.
3. What's the Difference Between a Drip Coffee Maker and a Pour-Over?
Drip coffee and pour-over coffee are similar in terms of flavor. However, drip coffee is made using an automatic “drip coffee maker” — a machine that automatically heats water and drips it over ground coffee. A pour-over brewer is essentially a manual drip coffee maker. Water must be boiled in a kettle before pouring over ground coffee to extract a brew.
4. Should You Pre-Rinse Coffee Filters?
Yes. You should always pre-rinse your paper coffee filters before making drip or pour-over coffee. Rinsing the filter removes any impurities from the paper, ensuring that your brew is free from “paper” or chemical aftertaste.
5. Do Coffee Filters Contain Bleach?
White coffee filters are chemically bleached to give them their bright white color. However, unbleached filters — although not as appealing to the eye — are widely available. It's best to opt for unbleached (brown) coffee filters to avoid consuming any harmful chemicals like chlorine or peroxide.
6. What's Better — Filter Coffee or French Press?
Neither filter nor French press coffee is “better.” Which one is best for you depends on your preference. Filter coffee is cleaner, with a thinner body and a less-silty mouthfeel. French press coffee has a thicker body, more intense flavor, and can produce a silty mouthfeel due to fine grounds that pass through the mesh filter.
7. Can You Make Espresso With Filter Coffee?
No. You can't make espresso coffee with a filter coffee maker. A true espresso is made by forcing pressurized water through finely ground coffee — an espresso machine is needed for this. However, you can make a concentrated coffee shot with filter coffee by increasing the coffee-to-water ratio. You can also use a moka pot to make a shot of coffee that's almost identical to espresso.
8. Can You Make Iced Coffee With Filter Coffee?
Yes. You can make iced coffee with filter coffee. Simply increase the coffee-to-water ratio to create a strong, concentrated brew. Cool the coffee, pour it over ice, and dilute it with milk to create a delicious, creamy iced coffee.
9. How Much Caffeine is in a Cup of Filter Coffee?
The amount of caffeine in a cup of filter coffee varies depending on the bean or blend, the coffee-to-water ratio, and the type of brewer used. A standard 8-oz (240 mL) cup of filter coffee can contain anywhere from 90 to 180 mg. Coffee made with 100% robusta can be twice as strong as a brew made with arabica coffee.
10. Can You Make a Latte With Filter Coffee?
You can't make a true latte without an espresso machine and a milk steamer. However, you can make a brew with similar qualities by brewing a strong cup of filter coffee and frothing warm milk using a fine whisk or milk frother.
