I wonder if you have noticed that except for some large chain brands, very few coffee shops now use trapezoidal filter cups to produce Pour over(V60) coffee. Nowadays, almost all of them use conical filter cups with large holes. Front Street will take you to explore.
The world's first filter cup was the trapezoidal filter cup from Germany's Melitta. It was an inverted trapezoid-shaped single-hole filter cup with a wide top and narrow bottom. And because the filter paper used is shaped like a fan, it is also called a fan-shaped filter cup. Due to the popularity of Italian coffee at that time, Pour over(V60) coffee has always been a very niche household coffee appliance.
It wasn't until 1959 that Pour over(V60) coffee became popular in Japan. Japan's Kalita "learned" from this trapezoidal filter cup and made improvements, including changing it from a single hole to a three-hole one. This trapezoidal filter cup from Kalita has become a classic among trapezoidal filter cups. The earliest conical filter cup was invented by Kono in 1968, and the classic V60 filter cup among the conical filter cups was launched around 2000.
In this case, Front Street will compare the classic Kalita 101 in the trapezoidal filter cup with the classic V60 in the conical filter cup. Maybe you can understand why conical filter cups are now used, and there are fewer and fewer trapezoidal filter cups.
Front Street used Front Street Washed Yirgacheffe and Front Street Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee for comparison, and the brewing parameters remained unchanged. The brewed flavor is as follows:
【Front Street Yirgacheffe Coffee】
V60: Light white floral and citrus fruit aroma, citrus-like sweet and sour taste and green tea flavor, clean taste and obvious layering.
Kalitta: Fruity and sweet, citrus sour and sweet, with a distinct tea flavor. The taste is full, rich and balanced.
【Blue Mountain Coffee on Front Street】
V60: Refreshing taste, dark chocolate, nuts, and slightly sweet and sour fruit flavors.
Kalitta: The flavor of nuts and dark chocolate, mellow taste, balance of sour, sweet and bitter, comfortable.
Judging from the flavor performance of the coffee brewed by these two filter cups, the conical filter cup represented by V60 is good at expressing the flavor of coffee beans, and the trapezoidal filter cup represented by Kalita is good at expressing the balance and thickness of coffee.
The secret that causes these two filter cups to produce different flavor expressions lies in their structures. V60's spiral-shaped alternating long and short guide ribs plus large drain holes allow water to soak into the coffee powder and quickly flow down through the guide ribs. The conical structure makes it easier to fill the water evenly when filling it. It is a filter cup that relies on water to flush coffee powder to release coffee substances. Except for the relatively early kono filter cup, the subsequent conical filter cups all belong to this type.
Although the trapezoidal filter cup also has ribs, these vertical ribs are more used for exhausting the coffee when it is steamed. The three small drain holes make the water draining speed relatively slow. Although the trapezoidal structure is not conducive to even water filling, the slow draining speed makes the water filling less rigorous. This design allows the coffee to be extracted while soaking most of the time, so the overall performance of the coffee will be fuller, balanced, and mellow in taste.
So if you like coffee with low acidity and high body, buy Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling, Front Street Queen’s Manor, Front Street Brazilian Cerato, and Front Street Blue Mountain No. 1, because they all use medium-dark roasting, and the coffee comes with nuts, chocolate, caramel and other substances that provide sweet and bitter flavors.
Back to the question of "Why are trapezoidal filter cups becoming more and more rare now?" It is actually a retreat from the environment. V60 was born out of demand around 2000. At that time, dark roast coffee was transitioning to light roast coffee as the mainstream. For light roast coffee, more emphasis was placed on the expression of flavor. V60 is also praised by the public and regarded as a classic because it can better express the flavor of coffee (of course, marketing is also a reason). When community coffee shops with Pour over(V60) coffee shops sprouted everywhere, the exposure of conical filter cups increased greatly. Relatively, other shapes of filter cups, including trapezoidal filter cups, became even rarer.
However, we can also see coffee with trapezoidal filter cups in some large chain brand coffee shops. This also has to be said about the advantage of the trapezoidal filter cup - stability. Because the trapezoidal filter cup has the characteristics of slow draining, soaking and extraction, and reducing the impact of water injection, as long as the amount of powder, grinding degree, water temperature, ratio, and extraction time are designed, the only thing the barista has to do is to pour out the water within a fixed time. Whether you are a novice or an experienced expert, the performance of the final coffee will not be too different. Therefore, these stable, easy-to-use, and simple-to-operate coffee filter cups are very popular among coffee chain brands with high personnel mobility.
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
