The Best Way to Make Pour-Over Coffee at Home
By Matt Duckor
Making coffee at home is one of those morning rituals that makes just about everything better. The house smells great, you’re saving money, and, most importantly, you start your day caffeinated (if that’s your thing). The process should also be painless—the last thing you want is to turn a calming routine into a stress-inducing chore.
And there’s never been a better time to establish a home coffee game than now. Great coffee is everywhere: From big name roasteries like Stumptown, Intelligentsia, Blue Bottle to tiny operations churning out great small-batch beans in cities across America. You can order from any of them online, but that doesn’t guarantee your coffee will turn out great at home.
One of the most popular ways to make coffee is by one of the various pour-over methods out there. Pour-over refers to the act of manually pouring hot water over ground beans. But not all pour-over methods are created equal.
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In fact, there’s only one that makes producing great coffee at home almost fullproof: a Bee House dripper.
You may have heard of v60, a conical-shaped pour-over system that’s quickly gained popularity among high-end coffee shops over the past few years. When made properly, the v60 produces excellent coffee—but doing that is pretty tough. Not only does it use special paper filters, the v60 also requires you to add your water in timed stages and measure the volume poured each time. Don’t have time for that? Neither do we. But, unfortunately, if you skip the timed pours, you’ll end up with over or under-exacted coffee (a brew that tastes either bitter or “weak,” respectively).
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The Bee House eliminates these problems. It’s flat-sided design simplifies the process: Using a standard #4 size paper coffee filter (they’re about $7 for a 100-pack), your entire amount of water is poured at once over the bloomed grounds (that is, grounds that have been quickly saturated with boiling water and left to sit for 30 seconds). The entire process takes about 2 minutes and delivers consistent, delicious results from a v-shaped piece ceramics that costs $21.99.
For more on making coffee with the Bee House dripper, check out Stumptown Coffee’s excellent brew guide at stumptowncoffee.com.
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photo: Matt Duckor
