What is Filter Coffee? A Barista's Guide

Exploring specialty coffee

Have you ever found yourself sipping away at your latte in a specialty café, watching the barista delicately pour hot water from a gooseneck kettle, through coffee grinds in a cone — yielding a glistening carafe of chestnut-copper brown coffee? You see them share a conversation with the customer who ordered the beverage, they look inquisitive as the barista shares the story behind the brew — the recipe, flavour notes, origin, producers. The customer takes a sip from the steaming cup and you witness hospitality excellence you didn’t think possible in a café.

Or perhaps you’re looking to elevate your coffee game at home but want affordable and easy to clean equipment that doesn’t take as much maintenance as a home espresso machine?

While espresso coffee is the leading beverage in any typical café, seeing filter coffee on offer is what suggests specialty coffee service. Filter brew methods allow you to taste the more complex and delicate flavours of the bean.

Filter vs Espresso: What’s the Difference?

Filter coffee uses low-pressure brew methods involving percolation. To extract more delicate oils and aromatic compounds, hot water is allowed more contact time with the coffee. This yields a clean and complex cup of coffee unlike espresso.

Espresso machines technically use a filter but the pressure made by the machine is the dominant component of the brew method, and the hot water makes shorter contact with the coffee grounds, yielding a strong and rich cup of espresso.

It may sound like filter is lighter in caffeine compared to espresso, but on the contrary filter coffee tends to have a higher extraction due to the longer contact time and larger dose of coffee used in the brew. The common ratio of an espresso recipe is 1 part coffee to 2 parts water (1:2) and might only increase to a ratio of 1:2.5. Filter recipes on the other hand can start from ratios of 1:16 to 1:20 depending on the recipe and the brew method.

5 Ways to Brew Filter Coffee at Home

Filter coffee brewing equipment you’ll see today vary between manual and automatic functionality. We’re sharing the ones seen at most specialty cafes today. These are affordable and approachable for anyone looking to upgrade their coffee at home.

Manual Equipment

The manual brewers below require a touch of research to learn how to use. But we’ve got you. Our guides to these brew methods will have you brewing like a White Horse barista in no time.

Hario V60 Dripper. You’ll find many cafes using a Hario V60 Dripper [link to shop] to deliver seasonal coffees from their pour over menu. This conical brewer known for it’s distinct design achieves an efficient flow rate and high heat retention to allow for an even coffee extraction. The seasoned barista will pair this brewer with the use of a gooseneck kettle to achieve a controlled and consistent pour with each brew.

Even you if only have a standard wide spouted kettle at home, the design of this brewer along with the conical filter will still yield a clean cup of filter coffee.

Check out our guide to pour over coffee here.

Aeropress Coffee Brewer. For a more mobile brewer at home or as you travel, the Aeropress Coffee Brewer [link to shop] is one of the more compact brewers you can keep in your bag. The brewer is made up of two cylinders designed to contain coffee grounds and allow lightly applied pressure to push hot water through a small filter paper.

This brewer can only yield a single cup amount of around 200ml but due to versatility, many recipes and techniques have been developed by passionate coffee drinkers around the world. It’s uncommon you’ll find cafes using this brewer as part of their offering, but its a favourite for many to bring along camping or on a long flight.

Check out our guide to Aeropress here.

Plunger. The most accessible filter coffee brewer is the plunger—also known as a French Press [link to shop]. The plunger is one of the oldest brewing methods and is common to the retail shelf of any coffee shop. It is a metal or glass cylindrical carafe, with metal mesh filter with an attached handle, allowing the filter to be plunged over brewing coffee to yield a strong and flavourful brew.

Next to the paper filters used with the V60 and Aeropress, a plunger’s mesh filter tends to allow more of the finer grounds through, leaving coffee sediment to rest at the bottom of your cup. If you’re not savvy to simply leaving the last little dregs of coffee in your cup, you could pour the brew from a plunger through a paper filter, resulting in the strong flavour brewed by a plunger with a clean body achieved by a V60.

Check out our guide to French press brewing here.

Automatic Equipment

Electric machines can brew as little as a cup to a 2L batch of coffee with hands-free functionality. The machine heats water in an attached container and pumps it out of an arm over the coffee grounds, before passing through paper filter and into a carafe.

Moccamaster. The automatic brewers from Moccamaster are known for their simple, yet limited functionality. These brewers come in a range of colours if you’re into building an aesthetic at the café or home, and also have different options of thermal or glass carafes.

Breville Precision Brewer. Breville is known for its wide range of kitchen appliances—and since releasing this automatic brewer, they’ve begun replacing the Moccamaster in cafes. This is due to it’s functionality and customisable settings that allow for versatile brewing that many passionate baristas enjoy experimenting with.

What Coffee Beans to use for Filter?

Next time you’re browsing for filter coffee to brew yourself, keep an eye out for a light or filter roast label on the packaging. Roasters will roast lighter for coffee beans intended for filter brewing.

A lighter roast allows the brew to highlight the brighter and sweeter notes of the coffee, best brought out through filter methods. If you’re intrigued by the dark side, a darker roast in filter will often yield a very heavy body carrying much of the richer flavours guaranteed to give you a kick start in the morning.

But there isn’t a ‘correct’ type of bean to use when you’re brewing filter. Countries around the world have different cultural preferences for what to serve. And everyone has their own personal preference of how they enjoy their filter. Some enjoy adding a touch of their favourite milk, others enjoy it chilled or iced on a hot day. You’ll even find some cafes pushing boundaries with filter coffees, creating specialty drinks that combine cold filters with tea syrups and even coconut water. There is so much to explore in coffee beyond a latte. If you find yourself in a specialty café offering filter coffee, it means they’re ready to share the story of the coffee through the delicate character of the bean.