Dripper type overview - Cone shaped dripper

Collect different coffee drippers is one of my habits in my coffee journey. I believe there is no "bad dripper", people can use any dripper to make delicious coffee; however, we can use characteristics of different drippers to help us get our "best cup of coffee". I want to share some of my thoughts about three types of dripper (cone shaped, flat bottom, and fan shaped). It's a big topic so I will talk about one type in one post, and this post is for cone shaped dripper.

Each cone shaped dripper will have their own features but we won't get into that in this post. In my opinion, cone shaped dripper has below characteristics:

1. The bottom angle is larger than other two types which makes the dripper steeper, plus the bottom of cone shaped dripper is usually a single big hole, both lead to a faster flow rate.

2. Also due to the larger angle, the coffee ground are more concentrate to the center, which means if you pour same amount of water, more coffee ground will get contact to water, and that lead to higher extraction rate in a shorter time.

3. Because the coffee ground concentrate to center, the coffee bed will be higher in cone shaped dripper (deeper layer). Water in dripper is always flowing from top to bottom, that means the upper layer will always get fresh hot water and get more extracted, when bottom layer will get less extracted because the water is already saturated. In short, the extraction is easier to be uneven in cone shaped dripper.

4. In the late stage of brewing, the micro fines will sunk to the bottom and make flow rate become slower. This issue is easier to happen in cone shaped dripper because the bottom of cone shaped filter is narrow.

Base on my experience, cone shaped dripper tend to emphasize the aroma and acidity from coffee, and its characteristics is nice fit with flat burr. Also, the coffee made by cone shaped dripper will taste more different between hot and cold.

Thanks for reading.