How the Hario V60 Drip Kettle saved me from making mediocre pour over coffee.

Many thanks to Igor Dernov at FrenchPressCoffee.com for sending us this Hario V60 Drip Kettle.

If you have watched the video, you’ll know that Igor saved me from many years of self-delusion and inverse snobbery.

For the longest time I figured I could do just fine with my regular kitchen kettle.

I thought these fancy pour-over kettles were just for hard-core coffee snobs.

Well, it turns out I was wrong, and needed a quick slap around the head. Thanks Igor!

This Hario V60 Drip Kettle is wonderful. It’s small, light and – most important of all – it’s perfectly balanced in your hand.

This means you have total control over the pour rate as you add water to the ground coffee in your filter cone brewer or Chemex.

That measure of control is important for one key reason.

When you are using any pour over brewing method, you are in control of the timing of the brew cycle. And you want that time to be at about 3 minutes, from start to finish. Maybe a touch longer. Practice and see what suits you best.

Anyway, it’s really tough to get enough control of the water flow when using a regular kitchen kettle. You’ll find yourself dumping too much water into the filter, too fast.

Hence the need for a drip kettle with a small and slender spout.

One other thing I’ll say about this Hario is that it’s a beautiful piece of design.

I like beautifully designed things. 

This kettle looks good and has managed to balance both form and function. In other words, it doesn’t look good simply to satisfy the vanity of the designer. Looking good is the outcome of designing the kettle in a way to ensure it does its job as well as possible.

My advice is to not wait as long as I did when it comes to buying one of these kettles.

Trust me, using a regular kitchen kettle just isn’t the same.

You can find the Hario V60 Drip Kettle, and plenty of other goodies for coffee lovers, at FrenchPressCoffee.com. 

For 10% off, site wide, use the coupon code: COFFEEDETECTIVE10

NOTE: This product was sent to us free in return for a review. (That said, we always reserve the right NOT to review a free product if we don't like it, or feel you wouldn't like it.)