Coffee & Espresso review
Hario V60 Review: One Hole, and It Is Entirely Your Fault
The single large opening means the dripper controls nothing and you control everything. That is the reason it makes the best cup in this catalogue and the reason it makes bad ones.
By Paulo GerchonPublished 2 min read
Photo: Honmingjun, CC BY-SA 4.0
Hario
Hario V60 Dripper
Good · researched from 4 sources
The cheapest thing in this catalogue that can produce the best cup, provided you are willing to spend a fortnight learning to pour. Buy the ceramic for home and the plastic for travel, and budget for a gooseneck kettle because it is not optional.
- Buy if
- Anyone who wants to control extraction rather than press a button · Light and medium roasts, where clarity is the point · Travel, in the plastic version
- Skip if
- People who want coffee without technique · Brewing for more than about four cups · Anyone unwilling to buy a gooseneck kettle
We don’t list prices, because Amazon’s change hourly.
The hole is the entire design
Most pour-over drippers have small holes that restrict flow. That restriction does the timing for you: water pools, drains at a fixed rate, and the coffee gets roughly the right contact time whether you poured carefully or dumped it in.
The V60 has one large opening. Water leaves as fast as you deliver it. Contact time is not a property of the device, it is a property of your pour.
Mastering Coffee states the consequence without softening it: bad pours mean bad coffee. They also say the ceiling is higher than comparable drippers, which is the other half of the same fact.
This is the cheapest item in this catalogue and the one that demands the most from the person using it.
What you need alongside it
A gooseneck kettle. Every source treats this as required rather than optional, because a normal kettle spout delivers a wide uncontrolled stream and the whole method depends on placing water precisely.
V60 filters. Mastering Coffee reports generic cones often misfit, and the spiral ribs explain why: they exist to hold the paper off the wall so gas escapes and water drains through the bed rather than down the side. A filter cut to a different angle lies flat and defeats the design.
Something to brew into. There is no carafe.
Which one to buy
Mastering Coffee ranks the materials by heat retention: copper outstanding, ceramic excellent, glass and stainless good, plastic poor.
We Are The Mouth reviewed the plastic specifically and confirms water cools faster than in ceramic or metal, enough to affect flavour, while praising it as almost indestructible and the right choice for travel. Their one odd finding is a faint plastic smell until it has been used and washed a few times.
Ceramic at home, plastic in a bag. Preheat whichever you own, which costs nothing and closes much of the gap.
Where it is the wrong brewer
Corner Coffee Store puts it well: not ideal for anyone who prefers the richness of a French press.
A paper filter takes out oils and fine particles. What is left is clean and separated, where you can pick out individual notes. What is missing is body. If the coffee you like is heavy and rounded, this method will taste thin and you will conclude you are doing it wrong when you are not.
And it does not scale. The 02 handles one to four cups. Mastering Coffee says the 03 stretches to seven with reduced consistency, and Corner Coffee Store agrees larger volumes lose evenness. This is a brewer for one or two people.
How it scored
The overall 7.9 is the weighted average of these five criteria — we never adjust it by hand.
Brew quality
Mastering Coffee says the ceiling is higher than comparable drippers on recipe versatility. Corner Coffee Store rates the result smooth and scores it 4.4 out of 5.
Value
Cheaper than any other brewer in this catalogue, with the plastic version cheapest of all and We Are The Mouth calling it almost indestructible.
Build quality
Depends entirely on material. We Are The Mouth calls the plastic almost indestructible with poor heat retention; Mastering Coffee rates ceramic heat retention excellent.
Ease of use
Mastering Coffee is blunt that the single large hole means bad pours produce bad coffee, and puts the learning curve at one to two weeks with a gooseneck kettle required.
Flow control
The 60-degree cone, spiral ribs and single opening hand all timing control to the person pouring, which is the entire design intent.
Pros and cons
What we liked
- Total control over flow rate, which no flat-bottom dripper offers
- Mastering Coffee says the recipe ceiling is higher than comparable drippers
- Spiral ribs let the filter lift away so carbon dioxide can escape
- Five materials, so you can pick heat retention or durability
- We Are The Mouth calls the plastic version almost indestructible for travel
What we didn’t
- Mastering Coffee puts the learning curve at one to two weeks and says bad pours give bad coffee
- A gooseneck kettle is effectively required, which is a second purchase
- Filters must be genuine V60 cones; Mastering Coffee reports generic ones misfitting
- The plastic version has poor heat retention and We Are The Mouth notes a faint plastic smell when new
- No carafe included, so you need a vessel underneath
- Corner Coffee Store notes the 03 size loses consistency at larger volumes
Specifications
| Sizes | 01 for about one cup, 02 for one to four, 03 for four to seven |
|---|---|
| Cone angle | 60 degrees, which is where the name comes from |
| Opening | Single large hole, flow controlled by the pour |
| Interior | Spiral ribs that hold the filter off the wall |
| Materials | Ceramic, glass, plastic, stainless steel and copper |
| Heat retention | Excellent in ceramic and copper, poor in plastic per Mastering Coffee |
| Filters | V60-specific cone filters |
| Suggested ratio | 10 to 12 g of medium-fine coffee per 4 oz serving per Corner Coffee Store |
How we researched this
We have not had this unit on the bench. This review synthesises the manufacturer’s published specifications, independent measurements and owner reports listed below. Every figure on this page comes from one of those sources rather than our own measurement.
4
sources reviewed
Mastering Coffee is the most detailed source, supplying the size capacities, the material-by-material heat retention comparison, the filter compatibility problem and the learning curve estimate. Corner Coffee Store contributed the brewing ratio, the bloom timing and the comparison against a French press. We Are The Mouth reviewed the plastic version specifically, which is where the heat retention and durability findings for that material come from. None of the sources published measured extraction or temperature data, so no numbers of that kind are claimed here.
What we read
Common questions
Why is the Hario V60 harder to use than other drippers?
Which material should I buy?
Do I need special filters?
What size should I get?
Is it better than a French press?
The bottom line on the Hario V60 Dripper
The cheapest thing in this catalogue that can produce the best cup, provided you are willing to spend a fortnight learning to pour. Buy the ceramic for home and the plastic for travel, and budget for a gooseneck kettle because it is not optional.
More home & kitchen reviews
Coffee & Espresso
1Zpresso JX-Pro
Forty clicks a rotation and more than two hundred settings, on 48 mm burrs that are larger than most electric grinders carry. It weighs 800 grams and you turn it yourself.
Coffee & Espresso
Baratza Encore
Every espresso review tells you the grinder matters more than the machine. This is the grinder they mean, and it is also the one that cannot pull espresso.
Coffee & Espresso
Breville Barista Express
It puts a burr grinder inside the machine, which is why beginners buy it. One reviewer measured dose variation of two to three grams between shots, which is why they outgrow it.