Pour over coffee is a simple but effective way to prepare your favourite brew at home. If you’ve ever wondered how to make the perfect pour over, we’ve got you covered with our step-by-step guide.
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Pour over coffee maker
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Coffee beans
Pour over coffee is coffee prepared by allowing hot water to pass through a filter full of grounds and gradually extract until you’re left with a bright, clean cup. This technique is a straightforward way to brew delicious coffee without an espresso machine.
The style has been common across Europe since the early twentieth century, thanks to a German entrepreneur named Melitta Bentz. Bentz discovered that you could brew a complex coffee without the grounds seeping through to your cup when she used paper from her son’s schoolbook as a filter — and the rest was history.
You can use any freshly ground coffee in your pour over, so long as it has a medium coarseness and an even distribution. This is so the water can drain evenly through the grounds rather than passing through any open channels between clumps, which is important for a consistent extraction.
Our specialty beans are a great choice for pour over coffee, to highlight their unique aromas — so if you’re not sure where to start, try out our coffee quiz and be matched to your next favourite roaster.
Pour over coffee is made in a similar way to drip coffee, but tends to produce a more flavourful and well-rounded cup. Each technique involves adding hot water to grounds and separating them with a filter, but drip coffee is usually prepared by an electric drip coffee maker, which allows less time for the coffee to extract. This means that drip coffee can be made faster, but usually has a less vibrant flavour and can’t be tailored specifically to the maker’s preferences.
No, pour over coffee isn’t stronger than regular coffee, but it does tend to offer more flavour than other brew methods like drip coffee. This is because the grounds are saturated for longer, allowing for more of the oils and flavours of the beans to be extracted.
No, you don’t have to use a Chemex to make pour over coffee, though these tools can be helpful if you’re preparing multiple servings. There are various different configurations that you can use for a pour over because all you need is a brewing device (such as a V60) that can hold the coffee filter and grounds, and a mug or carafe that it can sit in to catch your brewed coffee.
There are a number of ways that you can dispose of your spent coffee grounds. You may choose to remove them from your filter and add them to your food waste, general waste, or compost bin. We recommend composting as used-up coffee grounds are a great addition that can help to break down organic waste and improve your soil quality.
